La sabiduría nos llega cuando ya no nos sirve de nada. Wisdom comes to us when it’s already too late.

​​​​APPEAL TO THE CONGRESS
SAVE VOICE OF AMERICA SPANISH BROADCASTS TO LATIN AMERICA

In its plans for FY2013, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) has announced a major Reduction-in-Force for the essential VOA Spanish Service which broadcasts to Latin America. Over 20 employees are scheduled to be fired. We believe that the cessation of U.S. broadcasts to an extremely important region, which is strategic to U.S. interests, is a major blunder for our foreign policy.

​•​ For over 50 years, the Voice of America has been broadcasting to this critical part of the world in our hemisphere. At its anniversary celebration last year, the VOA Spanish Service celebrated the milestones in its communications with the countries of Latin America including its immensely popular Breakfast Show, Buenos Dias America, which covers historic events, news about our country, and international events in a style accessible to both elites and working people. This show as well as others are broadcast throughout Central and South America on AM and FM affiliate stations and satellite and are also available on podcasts, the VOA website and on mobile phones. This legacy of communication, which impacts the people of an important part of the world strategic to our interests, will stop if the cuts are approved by Congress. The BBG is wrong in concentrating its resources only on the Middle East and Asia while ignoring the nations of Latin America, whose trade surpasses those of China, India and Russia all together.

​•​ This region which had become synonymous with the words junta, banana republic and turmoil, is now emerging with a new level of political and economic maturity: exactly the audience that we want to reach. Democracy as well as economic upward mobility in many of the countries is starting to grow. However, the Hugo Chavez and Castro models of centralized control with their strong anti-Americanism and opposition to the free market are undermining the growth of democracy in Latin America especially with the constant anti-American diatribes of broadcasting agencies like TELESUR, a 24-hour TV network. The Chavez model in Venezuela is negatively affecting other countries in the region including Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Nicaragua. If America stops its communication with the emerging democracies of Latin America, the results could be most serious for U.S. national security.

​•​ China and Iran have expanded their influence in Latin America. China has now replaced the U.S. as the major trading partner of Brazil. Both countries are opening new cultural centers throughout Latin American countries. At the beginning of the year, Iran launched a 24-hour TV network which is broadcasting an aggressive anti-American message. Most seriously for global security, Iran is getting uranium for its fuel rods from Brazil and has negotiated an agreement with Bolivia’s leftist leader, Evo Morales, to extract lithium in commercial quantities. Their political and economic ties are growing, while the U.S. does not seem to be paying attention, which could directly impact our national security. Cutting VOA Spanish broadcasts to Latin America at this critical time makes no sense.

​•​ There are 50 million people of Latino heritage in the United States and their individual success stories in politics, business, culture, medicine and entrepreneurship in our society are an important and inspiring factor in our communications with the people of Latin America and in forging alliances with those countries. Cutting U.S. broadcasts to Latin America sends the wrong message to the Hispanic-American community, alienates Latino voters, and destroys the possibilities of communicating U.S. ideas, ideals and institutions. This would be a blow to U.S. public diplomacy in the region.

​•​ In its budget submission for FY2013, the BBG states that its actions are part of a long-range consolidation of VOA Spanish and Radio/TV Marti. To our knowledge, there is no mechanism for consolidation of VOA Spanish and Radio Marti in the language of the Radio Broadcasting to Cuba Act (P.L. 98-111) where the mission of Radio Marti is specifically spelled out. We do not believe that there has been any directive from Congress to change the mission of Radio/TV Marti whose broadcasts are targeted to the Cuban people. The mission of the VOA Spanish Service is codified in the VOA charter contained in P.L. 94-350. Therefore, we do not understand how and why the BBG is undertaking these actions unilaterally without consultation with or approval from the U.S. Congress.

•​​ The most undeniable example of how vital the VOA’s Spanish Service is for the United States was the recent Summit of the Americas in Colombia. As never before, the United States was isolated while nearly 30 regional Presidents refused to sign a joint Summit Final Declaration in protest against U.S. policies towards Cuba. In fact, there is growing support for the inclusion of Cuba at the next scheduled Summit. This highlights the steady decline of U.S. influence in a region whose economic growth rates are the envy of the developed world.

VOA SPANISH BROADCASTS TO LATIN AMERICA ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THE ​STRATEGIC INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

For the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the federal agency that runs the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and other stations broadcasting news to the world with U.S. taxpayers’ money, the public opinion that matters is mostly abroad.

These stations provide uncensored news to many countries without free media and some, specifically the Voice of America, also represent the United States — the full spectrum of American opinions — as part of VOA’s mission. These stations are not in the public diplomacy business per se, but their news reporting and the image they project adds to the overall U.S. public diplomacy message in various countries.

If you are a foreign national and the news gets out that your U.S. government employer mistreats you and takes advantage of you, it’s not a good thing for America’s reputation abroad. Journalists talk to other journalists who in turn publish what they hear from their colleagues.

If the U.S. government employer claims that its activities reflect American values and help other nations transition to media freedom and democracy, the gap between actions and words becomes even more apparent.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors executive staff has never cared about such things. They have ignored the public impact of their actions for years as they continued to exploit foreign born and U.S. visa status journalists, denied them basic rights and got away with it until now.

But the news about their mistreatment of employees is now leaking out, bad press in many countries intensifies, and court cases pile up, including one at the European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. Even pro-American foreign politicians speak out in defense of journalists mistreated and exploited by the BBG. This is not the kind of public diplomacy the U.S. needs. Yet, the BBG executive staff has remained unmoved.

But the tide may be turning against the BBG managers now working for the director of the International Broadcasting Bureau Richard Lobo. The fact that BBG employees rate their managers as being the worst leaders in the entire U.S. government, as reflected in the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) surveys, has caught the attention of BBG member Ambassador Victor Ashe. He started meeting with employees and urged other BBG members to do the same.

Ashe reported at the BBG meeting held last week in Miami that Board members have learned about management practices that were hidden in the closet for many years. He also said that Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine, who represented Secretary of State Clinton at the BBG meeting in Miami, made valuable suggestions on public input into the Agency’s operations. Another BBG member Susan McCue suggested that instead of cutting programs, the management should look for savings in “management.” At the same meeting, the Board reversed their staff’s recommendation to eliminate Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet and to close down the VOA Cantonese Service. The decision to reverse the Tibet and China cuts was announced by Governor Michael Meehan.

It appears that BBG members are finally beginning to realize that they themselves have been the victims of their own staff which has been responsible for numerous blunders, such as the proposal to end VOA radio to Tibet, but also for constantly proposing to cut programs, expanding their own bureaucracy at the expense of programming, and exploiting foreign journalists to maintain their positions and power.

The scheme devised by BBG executives involves cutting or reducing broadcasts, firing regular employees and replacing them with contractors who are paid very little, are denied basic employment benefits and can’t defend themselves effectively against abuses by the management.

Thanks to Governor Ashe’s efforts, BBG members and IBB director Richard Lobo have been hearing from some of these contractors at the Voice of America. For the first time, BBG members have met with union representatives. As Governor Ashe said, they have learned things they would rather not hear about, but things they should know. Exploitation and discrimination of foreign-born contractors was one of many topics which were discussed.

But neither employees nor their union are convinced that the current top BBG/IBB managers can be reformed. Most recently, the union representing BBG employees, AFGE Local 1812, posted an item on its website on the continuec Agency’s abuse of its J-1 Visa status journalists. It reads:

“Every so often there is case that so perfectly illustrates the mistreatment of employees committed by the BBG/IBB/VOA management that it needs to be told. The way this management has mistreated people that they brought into this country via the inappropriate use of the J-1 Visa process (known for good reason as the “nanny visa”) is appalling. Unfortunately the example below is not a singular case. There have been others that this management has sent packing in a similar manner. These former employees now have a very low opinion of the United States Government; if not America itself (although it needs to be pointed out that Sumaira has not indicated any ill will towards anyone at this point). I believe that the BBG/IBB/VOA management, by treating their J-1 Visa holders the way they do, turn these once enthusiastic promoters of America and our values into less than enthusiastic admirers of this country. In this way the management under the BBG undermines the Voice of America’s purpose, at least to the extent that we are supposed to promote good will towards this country and our ideals. I cannot vouch for everything she states but I can state that when the head of the H.R. office was asked what would have happened if Sumaira left the country when she was first informed that her visa had expired, she me told that there would not have been a reconsideration appeal because the Agency would not sponsor her to bring her back. In addition, the deciding official who heard Sumaira’s appeal did not sign the decision letter. One has to wonder why. I was a witness to Sumaira’s appeal and believe a third party decision maker would have thrown out the Agency’s allegations completely. Read Sumaira’s account by clicking on the title of this story.” Agency Abuse of J-1 Visa

Snjezana Pelivan is suing RFE/RL and BBG at the European Court of Human Rights

Then there is the longstanding discrimination of foreign-born journalists employed as contractors by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty at their headquarters in Prague, the Czech Republic. The Broadcasting Board of Governors executives devised a scheme of depriving these journalists of the protections they could receive under the current Czech labor law. That way they can fire them at will without any explanation and they can do that — they claim — under the communist-era rules that exempted certain foreign employers (It used to be Soviet companies in communist-run Czechoslovakia.) from some of the local laws and regulations.

This cynical abuse of the Czech legal system by the BBG has been a public diplomacy disaster abroad for the United States, but somehow it escaped the attention of most U.S. media and U.S. public officials.

Anna Karapetian is suing RFE/RL in Czech courts

This scandal has, however, been reported on widely by foreign media in some of the countries where RFE/RL operates. One case of a former RFE/RL employee Snjezana Pelivan has reached the European Court of Human Rights. Another case filed by an Armenian journalist Anna Karapetian is being reviewed by the courts in the Czech Republic. Both plaintiffs are women. They claim they were denied the protections of the Czech labor law because they were foreigners employed and then dismissed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. RFE/RL was merely following personnel policies set by BBG executives.

The husband of one of the women, himself a distinguished former RFE/RL editor and commentator, wrote a letter about the impact of this BBG policy on America’s image abroad. He provided a list of foreign media titles highly negative toward the United States as they reported on these court cases. The letter was addressed to the newly sworn in Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine.  The author of the letter Lev Roitman is the husband of Snjezana Pelivan whose case against RFE/RL and the BBG is pending before the European Court of Human Rights.  Roitman is a former RFE/RL senior commentator. He retired in 2005,after thirty years with RFE/RL in New York, Munich, and Prague.

“Please accept my congratulations on your confirmation by Senate as the next Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy. Hopefully, you will achieve better results for the United States than the kaleidoscope of your predecessors in that position.

 

In particular, the Secretary of State serves ex officio as a member of BBG and of RFE/RL’s

Board of Directors. You will represent her in that critical segment of U.S. public diplomacy.

For your predecessors, it was just a ceremonial and burdensome chore. The results of such a “leadership” (to use a politically correct word) are devastating to American image abroad.

 

Enclosed please find an Open Letter

At Broadcasting Board of Governors and Radio Free Europe/Liberty –Public Diplomacy is Public Scandal at Public Expense

It was delivered in hard copies to the listed addresses. On January 24th, the Open Letter was published and widely multiplied by Internet.

 

On January 27th, Mr. Walter Isaacson resigned as the BBG Chairman. Otherwise, nothing changed since then. Just the list of scandalous for the United States international publications (follows) grew longer. It is your task now to stop that cancerous grows of negative publicity.

 

I wish you real achievements in public diplomacy. You may start by confronting the self-serving BBG bureaucracy — for immediate benefit to our country.

 

“Abbreviated List of international publications (in Czech, Serbo-Croatian, English, Russian, Armenian, etc.) condemning RFE/RL discriminative personnel policies practiced in the Czech Republic”:

“At Broadcasting Board of Governors and Radio Free Europe/Liberty –

Public Diplomacy is Public Scandal at Public Expense,” 

“Snjezana Pelivan asks Croatian government to support her legal claim in Strasbourg,” 

“’Prague winter’ for USA’s Radio Free Europe/Liberty,”

“A Spectre (ghost) Haunts ‘Free Europe’ ,”

“A Letter from Prague: Two Women Fighting to Uphold America’s Principles at America’s Radio,”

“Samizdat at Radio Free Europe/ Liberty describes discrimination against foreigners, women,”

“American Radio Free Europe violates equal rights of its foreign employees in Prague,”

“U.S.-Funded Radio Free Europe Invokes Communist Law to Violate the Will of Congress,”

“American RFE/RL Fights in Courts against Armenian Journalist. And Scores Against America,”

“From RFE/RL: Immorality as a Matter of Policy,”

“Czech Court Rules Against RFE/RL in Suit by Dismissed Armenian Employee,”

“In handcuffs of ‘Liberty’,”

“Czech Court to American Radio Free Europe: No Use for U.S. Laws in the Czech Republic.         Hillary Clinton Will Not Be Asked to Testify,”

“Czech Court Rules RFE/RL Cannot Discriminate Against Its Own Foreign Journalists,”

“Radio Liberty Betrays Its Ideals,”

“Czech Supreme Court Rules Against Radio Free Europe. Karapetian’s Case Returned for New Consideration”,

“It’s the Morality, Stupid,”

“Radio Free Europe – Task for Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg,”

“Radio Free Europe – Guantanamo in Prague,”

“Armenian journalist appeals to Obama to Protect Rights of Foreign Journalists at U.S. Government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,”  

“Equality With Precondition. Practice of Free Europe Contradicts Its Ideals,”

“U.S. Attorney General is Asked to Investigate Fraud at RFE/RL,”

“Doomsday of Radio Liberty. From Double Standards to Double Morals?”

“A Sense of Betrayal,”

“Czech Politician Accuses U.S. of Discrimination Against Foreign Journalists,”

“On Air in Legal Vacuum,”

“Czech MP Writes to U.S. Counterparts Over Work Conditions in RFE/RL,”

”New Administration Must Undo RFE/RL Anti-Diplomacy Abroad,”

“BBG, RFE/RL: Bring Public Diplomats Instead of Public Bureaucrats,”

“Don’t Feed Kremlin’s Public Diplomacy With U.S. Public Hypocrisy,”

“Public Disaster Instead of Public Diplomacy,”

“Cases of Karapetian and Pelivan as Morality Check for Obama Administration. Radio Free Europe to Face European Court of Human Rights,”

“Czech MP Questions Pelivan Case,”

“Czech Sovereignty Ends at RFE/RL,”

“At Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Bulk of Discriminated Employees is Muslims. Hillary Clinton Serves on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Board of Directors,”

“Free Europe With Its Own Laws in Colonial Czech Republic?”  

“From Human Rights Show to Human Rights Court,”

“Prague Spring Leads to Strasbourg,”

”News Flashes From Radio Free/Radio Liberty. The Face of America Abroad,”

“Czech senator angry about Croat’s lawsuit”… “

Tara Sonenshine

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) executives who have embarrassed the Obama Administration by their decision to end Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Tibet will receive an early visit to VOA from the newly sworn-in Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara D. Sonenshine.

BBG Watch has learned that the new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs has accepted an invitation from the BBG to come by the Cohen Building early in her tenure.  Tara Sonenshine plans to attend the Board’s meeting this month at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), but has also welcomed the chance to visit the agency’s headquarters as well as “the vaunted home of VOA,” as one BBG official with former links to the State Department described her planned Voice of America visit in an internal email.

Tara Sonenshine will see the Voice of America shortly before it may lose many of its broadcasting services, including VOA radio to Tibet, major parts of VOA English and Spanish, VOA Cantonese broadcasts and Internet Cantonese news to China, VOA Georgian radio and several other foreign language news operations. VOA would lose 170 professional front line broadcasters and producers in the proposed budget if it is passed by Congress.   VOA faces net cuts totaling $17 million, compared with a reduction of $731,000 for its sister network, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

These cuts to Voice of America operations are being advanced year after year by a small group of BBG and IBB strategic planners and executives. Despite strong bipartisan opposition in Congress to these cuts, they were approved again this year by the majority of part time BBG members with the notable exception of the senior Republican Ambassador Victor H. Ashe. He and Sonenshine are the only attendees of BBG board meetings with any substantive foreign policy and public diplomacy experience. Sonenshine will represent at these meetings Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is an ex officio BBG member.

Tibetans protesting at BBG's Michael Lynton's LA Sony office against silencing of Voice of America radio broadcasts to Tibet by the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

A group of Tibetans and their supporters protested recently against the latest proposed VOA cuts at the Sony Pictures office of the BBG interim presiding chair Michael Lynton. Thousands of letters in support of VOA Tibetan radio broadcasts have been sent to members of Congress, some of whom want to save not only VOA Tibetan and Cantonese broadcasts but also VOA programs to other nations without free media, including Vietnam and Laos.

BBG and IBB executives who want to end these broadcasts claim that the Voice of America’s mission of representing the United States to the world can be done by the so-called surrogate broadcasters, semi-private entities such as Radio Free Asia (RFA), which are also managed by the BBG. Critics have charged, however, that these executives are also taking resources from the surrogate broadcasters to expand their own International Broadcasting Bureau bureaucracy. Their primary target, however, according to these critics, is the Voice of America, particularly reporting in foreign languages focusing on human rights issues. These BBG and IBB executives want to fire dozens of experienced VOA journalists, media freedom and human rights activists have warned.

Their measure of success, according to one critic, are VOA English lessons with high school bathroom humor that Chinese censors are inclined to ignore rather than providing hard-hitting radio and satellite television news of interest to specific groups such as political dissidents, human rights activists, ethnic and religious minorities and women who are victims of forced abortions. “They can’t survey these groups in an authoritarian nation like China and therefore videos with juvenile humor seem to them more appealing because they bring it an online audience that can be measured for as long as the Chinese censors allow it,” a critic said.

A letter addressed to Congresswoman Kay Granger (R – TX), Chairman of the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs of the House Committee on Appropriations and to Ranking Member Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D – NY) criticizes the Broadcasting Board of Governors for expanding their bureaucracy at the expense of critical overseas broadcasts and U.S. strategic interests:

The proposed reductions are driven not by a considered strategic world view, but by bureaucratic expedience and a fundamental misunderstanding of the mission of VOA. If the fiscal year 2013 proposal is enacted, the staff level for VOA will be reduced by 13.2% from the current year. In contrast, only 3.3% of the positions from the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), which provides administrative support to the BBG, will be cut. If the fiscal year 2013 proposal is enacted the number of full time equivalent (FTE) positions for the IBB will rise from 593.2 in fiscal year 2011 to 678.2. In the same time period VOA will lose 121.2 FTE positions. The general trend of the IBB has been to grow larger while the number of language services they support is being reduced. Broadcasting should be the last thing to be cut. It makes little sense to grow the bureaucracy while cutting that which it is meant to support. The eliminations and reductions in broadcasting to Tibet, China, Laos, and Vietnam alone will cut 28 positions from VOA.

Link to the Letter

Here is the schedule of Tara Sonenshine’s planned visit to the BBG and Voice of America headquarters, as described in an internal email:

The new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Tara Sonenshine, has accepted an invitation from the BBG to come by the Cohen Building early in her tenure.  She plans to attend the Board’s meeting this month at OCB, but has also welcomed the chance to visit the agency’s headquarters as well as the vaunted home of VOA.

This she will do next Tuesday, April 10, from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.  The program agreed upon with the State Department will be:

11 a.m. to noon – reception with light refreshments, VOA Briefing Room.

Among the invitees will be the language service heads and senior congressional staff who handle public diplomacy issues.

Noon to 12:30 – Tailored tour taking in historic aspects of the building as well as state-of-the-art studios.  Possible TV interview, to be worked out with VOA; tape would be shared across entities.

12:30 to 1:30 – Informal lunch, pre-ordered individually for those who choose to participate.  Details to follow.

The program will end in time for a brief break before the 2 p.m. Strategy and Budget Committee meeting.

Unlike most top level BBG and IBB executives, Tara Soneshine has extensive public diplomacy experience and is believed to be sensitive to human rights issues. Some who know her believe than she may be more involved in BBG decision making process.

Here is her official State Department bio:

Biography

Tara D. Sonenshine
Under Secretary
Term of Appointment: 04/05/2012 to present
Tara D. Sonenshine was sworn in as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs on April 5, 2012.

Tara was formerly Executive Vice President of the United States Institute of Peace. Prior to joining the United States Institute of Peace, she was a strategic communications adviser to many international organizations including USIP, the International Crisis Group, Internews, CARE, The American Academy of Diplomacy, and the International Women’s Media Foundation. Ms. Sonenshine served in various capacities at the White House during the Clinton Administration, including Transition Director and Director of Foreign Policy Planning for the National Security Council and Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Communications for the NSC.

Tara has had a distinguished career in communications and government, with high-level experience in broadcast, print, and online media. She has produced news programs for network television and authored numerous articles for national print and online media. She is the recipient of 10 News Emmy Awards and other awards in journalism for broadcast programs on domestic and international issues.

Tara graduated from Tufts University in 1981 Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in political science. She has remained active at Tufts on boards and advisory committees including the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.

Her broadcast career began at ABC News in New York, working for another Tufts alumnus, David Burke, then vice president of ABC NEWS. Ms. Sonenshine went on to become editorial producer of ABC News’ Nightline, where she worked for more than a decade. She was also an off-air reporter at the Pentagon for ABC’s World News Tonight. A former contributing editor for Newsweek, Sonenshine is the author of numerous articles on foreign affairs published in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other newspapers.

Her hobbies include family time, tennis, Zumba, writing about foreign policy and global women’s issues.

The continued flow of information from people in the know concerning the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and concurrently the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) is cause for grave concern about continued American strategic, public diplomacy and humanitarian interests in various countries in the world especially, countries like Tibet where wanton desecration of its people is the cultural genocidal policy of China as well as China itself, where human rights and freedoms are denied in every part of one’s existence.

For these active efforts on the part of the BBG to decimate the Voice of America (VOA) and its other offshoot broadcasting entities one is reminded of there being something rotten in the state of the BBG. It isn’t just a lack of vital knowledge or even understanding about what the VOA and the BBG’s surrogate broadcasting grantees are all about, it seems more to be a contrived effort to eliminate America’s influence and presence around the world and especially in those countries where it is the sole light in people’s lives.

It is becoming clearer by the day that in spite of the simple fact that the BBG is completely out of touch and worse, has no real interest in knowing what, who, how and why the VOA has operated so successfully for seventy years. Its strange actions would appear to be herded from some other source which has a vested interest in eliminating American influence.

There is considerable evidence provided by the Obama administration that America has many things it should apologize for but rarely mentions those which have provided millions of people with hope , inspiration and a belief in liberty, freedom and justice for all — the bedrock of America’s dreams and accomplishments.

It is of deep concern that Congress has not acted in a more rapid process to stop what the BBG is doing in its tracks, completely, not just for the short term.

Whenever there has been a consolidation of entities such as for instance what the BBG wants to do, place Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) under one umbrella — ostensibly to save money and end duplication, supposedly — it becomes very clear in short order that what was intended is an unwieldy bubble with no direction. Incapable bureaucrats with even less information upon which to make decisions take over and for all intents and purposes the fundamental reason for the whole operation is lost and done away with entirely.

This is the track that the incompetents at the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the International Broadcasting Bureau seem to be on and America will definitely regret the day that these individuals were in a position of authority to exercise such insane judgement in a world where freedom, liberty and human rights are being torn apart.

One only needs look at the horrible attacks on Jews and Christians in many parts of the world and their right to exist being driven off the map of humanity. At no other time in America’s history, except for during the Second World War, has its influence, care, generosity and hope been more necessary than now. So the question remains, and it requires a very solid response. Why is the BBG attempting to tear down what has been operating exceptionally well for over seventy years?

The namby pamby answers from the BBG, such as saving money and eliminating duplication, just don’t answer the question and in no way are even reasonable or sound. While some may believe that the Cold War is over, most know that in a different form it is just heating up in many parts of the world. It is a frightening thought to realize that Christians and Jews are being killed just for the heck of it, without a viable response by radio broadcasts from America.

Now is the time — not later, or sometime in the future, but now — for Congress to act in a direct, concise and patriotic manner to save the agency and the Voice of America from demolition by a group of know nothings, care nothings, who themselves are so self-absorbed they have no idea what is required of America in order to maintain its influence and humanity for millions around the world.

by Quo Vadis 

In November 2011, at a forum sponsored by the Public Diplomacy Council and reported on by Adam Clayton Powell III, participants heard that the newest 2011 VOA audience figures showed an increase of 22 million for the international broadcasting audience in comparison with 2010.  Good news, of course, and fast on the heels of a brand-spanking-new Strategic Plan unveiled just a month prior and authored by the IBB spokesman at the forum, the Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Performance Measurement of the United States Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).

In those 2011 VOA audience figures, “the biggest success on the planet” is how the IBB spokesman described U.S. broadcasting in Afghanistan.  Evidently, the data showed three-quarters of the entire country watches or listens to American broadcasts. Additionally, 400,000 Afghans subscribe to BBG text messaging services. According to available research data, less than half of the population in Afghanistan has a TV and only a tiny minuscule has access to the Internet. Therefore, it would not be difficult to deduce that radio, for the time being, is by far the most powerful medium in the country to reach potential listeners.
 
In reaction to the news about the impact and popularity of U.S. broadcasting in Afghanistan, the BBG/IBB in its FY-2013 budget submission decided to cut those evidently powerful VOA radio broadcasts to Afghanistan while proposing to release eight seasoned VOA broadcasters. In so doing is the Agency, as some wonder, transferring the functions away from VOA’s federal employees to the RFE/RL surrogate grantee, thereby opening up the back door to de-federalization?   

That non-sequitur in deciding to cut VOA Afghan broadcasts in spite of their importance and popularity is rivaled by the announcement in the FY-2013 budget that VOA will cut most of its English-language broadcasts to the world including China and the Middle East. This decision ignores the fact that according to some, English is or should be the official language of the United States, remains the language of diplomacy, culture, and commerce in the world as well as being the second language of choice for millions of people around the globe from Albania to Zambia. One can only wonder if the BBC, plus Radio Canada International and Radio Australia, perhaps inspired by the daring VOA example, will soon cut its English-language broadcasts to the world as well. 

At the Public Diplomacy forum, there came a “medium is the message” a la Marshall McLuhan moment when the IBB spokesman stated: “Impact cannot be reduced to audience, but you cannot have impact without audience,” adding that broadcasting needs to look at specific audiences – not just traditional elites, but young people and women.” Actually, the Voice of America has been doing that for many years, informing audiences with the latest news and commentary and tailoring its back-half features to the diverse interests of its listeners with programming aimed at a cross-section of the listening audience: farmers, students, teachers, engineers, politicians, elites, business people, young/old, men/women, rich and poor. In its music programs, the VOA of the not-too-distant past  broadcast the full spectrum of American music: opera and classical music, country, Broadway, folk, pop, rock, hip-hop, blues, jazz and never concentrated solely on rock and pop music, as in Radio Sawa to the Middle East, as if that were the only musical genre produced in America.

Beyond audience growth, another goal of the Strategic Plan, said its author, is for VOA and other U.S. broadcasters to embrace user content and use material created by listeners and viewers. According to the IBB spokesman at the forum, the “value added” by U.S. international broadcasting would be checking and verifying the accuracy of material submitted by the audience. Unfortunately, the “check-and-verify” concept was challenged by the recent gaffe of the VOA Russian website which published a completely fictitious interview supposedly with a leader of the anti-Putin dissident movement in Moscow, Alexei Navalny, who announced to the world that the VOA interview was totally bogus and conducted via cyberspace with an impostor. “Value added” is a slippery slope, indeed.

One questioner at the PD forum said he could not find the phrase “public diplomacy” anywhere in the Strategic Plan.  “Correct,” said the Strategic Plan author, the reason being:  “Objective journalists by and large, don’t subscribe to the idea that they are changing people’s attitudes,” continuing that “attitudinal and behavioral change is the hope, but not a direct goal.”  And the explanation finished with:  “we don’t do the advocacy piece. Good things will come from good journalism.”  

Crystal-clear.  Forget the WHAM (Winning Hearts and Minds) factor.

That comment is in sharp contrast to the words of the distinguished public diplomacy expert, Walter Roberts, whom many credit with being one of the founding fathers of VOA. At the recent 70th birthday celebration of VOA, Walter Roberts stated: As the information revolution proceeds, diplomacy will become much more public diplomacy and public diplomacy cannot exist without international broadcasting. When I predict that in 30 years the Voice of America will exist, I also predict that Deustche Welle will also exist, that the BBC will exist because international broadcasting is a vital part of public diplomacy.”

Although public diplomacy was indeed omitted in the latest Strategic Plan, former BBG Chairman, Walter Isaacson, placed international broadcasting at the center of our national security. In his remarks when the Strategic Plan was unveiled, Mr. Isaacson said: “Our media outlets – VOA, RFE/Radio Liberty, Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa, RFA, and Radio/TV Marti – are a vital, cost-effective national security asset, whose impact is felt by some 166 million people weekly across the globe where critical U.S. interests are at stake.”

That difference of opinion is reflected in the current state of affairs at the BBG/IBB where there is an obvious disconnect about the true mission of international broadcasting between upper management and some middle-managers together with most of the rank-and-file.  Over the past few years, that disconnect is also obvious with the U.S. Congress which has consistently overruled the plans of the BBG/IBB in the national interest and the interests of national security.

The VOA ensemble trudges on and plays its heart out in spite of who happens to be the leader or conductor at any given time. Many directors embraced their duties conducting the VOA ensemble with enthusiasm, earning respect and admiration; others were indifferent or perceived the employees as a bothersome and unruly bunch, preferring to keep interaction to a minimum. Regardless of whether the Director was a gem or a lemon or whether upper management knew the score or didn’t, the broadcasting band continued to play on and does so now until such time as its voice will be silenced.

Not much different from the musicians in this video playing Dance of the Comedians from Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride” with the irrepressible rascal, Victor Borge, at the podium.

Link to Video

Link to Video

The following is a guest commentary which takes a look at how the Chinese authorities and a U.S. federal government agency adopted a similar approach to media use of the Cantonese language.

IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK AND QUACKS LIKE A DUCK, IT’S NOT A CHICKEN

News Commentary by Quo Vadis

In a statement issued  February 13, 2012 announcing its budget request for 2013,  the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) trumpeted sweeping cuts of English and language broadcasts and a reduction of almost 200 jobs at its flagship station, the Voice of America, this year celebrating its 70th, and as many believe, its final anniversary.  
 
Among the VOA broadcasts facing obliteration:  the Cantonese Service which has been on the air since February of 1939 when the United States began  its link with the people in China who speak Cantonese by providing them with news broadcasts and then programs to promote freedom and democracy. Its role was reaffirmed by Public Law 94-350 which established the VOA Charter. 
 
In its announcement, the BBG, as justification for its decision, stated: “as Mandarin and Cantonese are the same written language, VOA will reach Cantonese listeners on its website.”  There is a slight problem with this assertion.  

Without going into the language of linguists who use exotic-for-the-general-public words like logographic, semanto-phonetic and morphophonemic, let’s break it down in more understandable terms:  

Written Chinese uses Classical and Standard characters. Both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers can read Classical Chinese.   Standard Chinese is based on the Mandarin dialect with vocabulary drawn from Mandarin speech. Therefore, the BBG is partly correct in saying that Mandarin and Cantonese speakers can both READ the classical WRITTEN Chinese language.  However, (and it’s quite a significant “however”), written and spoken Cantonese is almost completely different from written and spoken Mandarin because Cantonese is essentially a different language in its spoken form. 
 
So, in short, according to linguists, with some variations, this is basically how it goes:
​     
Mandarin speakers can read Standard Written Chinese (Mandarin) but not Written Cantonese.

Mandarin speakers understand Spoken Mandarin but generally don’t understand Spoken Cantonese although there are some Mandarin speakers who can.

Cantonese speakers can read Written Chinese (Mandarin) and their own Written Cantonese.

Some Cantonese speakers can understand Spoken Mandarin but all understand Spoken Cantonese. 

Boiled down to more understandable terms:

A Cantonese speaker and a Mandarin speaker can look at the exact same written text and understand what it says.  But ask them to read it out loud, and it’s the proverbial duck talking to the chicken.
 
That’s a bit different from the BBG statement which calls for a faulty and suspect conclusion to justify an action that they have taken with little or no research as to its validity and complexity.
 
Essentially, the BBG decision means that the approximately 60+ million speakers of Cantonese in mainland China which includes the large provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi  as well as the predominantly Cantonese-speaking population (7 million) of Hong Kong plus another half-million in Macau will be deprived of news and information from the United States of America. 
 
Not only information from America.  The central communist government in Beijing decided that as of March 1st of 2012, domestic radio and TV Cantonese broadcasts to the mainly Cantonese-speaking populous province of Guangdong will disappear (broadcasters will have to apply for permission to broadcast).  
 
This latest move against media use of Cantonese comes after the government proposed switching prime-time programming on Guangdong TV’s main channels from Cantonese to Mandarin in 2010. Implementation was postponed when the decision triggered mass demonstrations by Cantonese speakers, demonstrations so intense that the VOA covered them in its English-language broadcasts. 

Keeping VOA Cantonese broadcasts alive could and should be a strategic decision by the BBG in order to maintain and moreover, to increase listenership among a population now deprived of media in its own language.  
 
In the olden days of VOA, issues such as these were discussed and debated prior to implementation.  Not so now. Unfortunately, trying to point these facts out to the members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and their executive staff is akin to speaking Mandarin to a Cantonese and vice versa:  quack-quack to cluck-cluck: like a duck talking to a chicken.
 

Here is the comment by a VOA/BBG insider.

There’s an essential difference between the BBG structure of today, and say, the BBC — one has established truly global credibility, the other (i.e. USIB) still struggles in the muck and mire of the never-ending debate over its mission, its link to “public diplomacy” and U.S. foreign policy objectives, and the role of journalism in all of this.

Formation of the BBG accelerated a process that took us from having one VOICE OF AMERICA, to numerous voices. Though VOA itself was born during World War II, with a specific purpose (though also to tell the truth), by the 1990′s the BBG had encouraged and made possible, with the help of a compliant Congress, creation of the cacophony of USIB that today we all know so well. Not only do we have the main grantee entities, but entities within entities. And the line that for a long while separated so-called surrogate activities was blurred, to say the least, and remains that way today.

Now, under the Isaacson plan, being sold to Congress with the appropriate flood of hosannas, this BBG is trying to make the case that nothing less than a CNNization is the answer to all of the ills seen in today’s USIB. This will be a most interesting discussion, provided members of Congress have the presence of mind to examine the issue with care in an election year.

The “vigorous debate” that Matt calls for is more likely not to happen (except in this and similar blog sites) simply because it is not in the interests of the BBG to allow it.

Board members for the most part (the exception has been Victor Ashe who at least paid some attention to employee morale and other issues) care only about forcing through the Isaacson plan, so they can comfortably return to their own more lucrative pursuits as pundits or CEOs, until they are dragged back for the next BBG meeting in the Cohen building, or in Prague or Miami.

It is an amazing fact that USIB has been run for decades by a board that generally (only in recent years did it open deliberations to the public) has been secretive, and isolated itself from hearing the views of the rank and file.

As for the comment that BBG is “a critical element of America’s foreign policy” — that may be the case. But the $760 million bill of goods the BBG is trying to sell Congress (roughly the current BBG budget figure but multiply this by however many years USIB will continue) is being parading as the creation of some independent global network when in reality everyone knows (except the American taxpayer) that this will be a government-run and influenced information network. We hesitate to use the word propaganda — that still sets off alarm bells — but unfortunately that is exactly what many in the non-government media believe USIB is.

Will there be vigorous debate? We doubt it. Advantage to the BBG here. Ironically, at a time when Americans are so worried about how their money is being spent, it’s all too likely that Congress will hold a single hearing about USIB and the BBG’s management of it, and proceed to lock in the board’s long-term strategic plan.

Ain’t America great?

We have just heard that the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors Walter Isaacson is stepping down from his post at the BBG. He is not responsible for any calls for censorship against BBG Watch and is regarded as a supporter of transparency. Our sources report, however, that the same cannot be said about at least one other member of the BBG. Here is what our sources, which want to remain anonymous, tell us.

This could be a great story for the Kremlin’s external propaganda television channel Russia Today (RT), which is available in English on some U.S. cable systems and has recently hired WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to help Mr. Putin and co. fight the information war, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. is losing.

It seems that rather than worrying about how to counter Mr. Putin’s propaganda, at least one member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), a federal agency in charge of promoting democracy and free speech abroad through U.S. government-funded international broadcasters like the Voice of America (VOA), is also deeply concerned about Americas who dare to criticize BBG officials for mismanagement and incompetence in carrying out the information war.

BBG Watch sources confirmed that a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors lashed out in private against domestic U.S. critics of BBG government officials, calling these critics “cowards” for using anonymous inside sources and taking advantage of the Internet and social media to anonymously post information and comments.

The BBG’s stated mission is “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

The BBG website states that U.S. international broadcasting serves “as a trustworthy source of news and as an example of a free, professional press in countries that lack independent media.” It also announces that “BBG broadcasters engage with audiences and promote dialogue through interactive programs and social networking.”

What could be only described as a glaring example of hypocrisy in public diplomacy, the same U.S. government official who calls his critics “cowards” then publicly rejoices when critics in Cuba, China, and Russia use anonymous new media to expose human rights violations and organize against their authoritarian regimes. The BBG member referred as “cowards” to American citizens who anonymously questioned the judgement of BBG executives involved with the unsuccessful BBG push in Congress to end VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress put a stop to the BBG China plan.

This and other BBG members have been publicly calling on Congress to give the agency more money to fight Internet censorship in China and Cuba so that Chinese and Cuban citizens can view Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and Radio/TV Marti websites and post anonymous news and comments. Congress gave the BBG $10 million for this purpose.

But in private, one BBG member urged his colleagues to do something to counter anonymous U.S. domestic criticism of BBG executives on the independent BBG Watch website run by current and former BBG employees and other volunteers, most of whom prefer to remain anonymous.

Hypocrisy and bad public diplomacy setting a terrible example for pro-democracy and free speech activists abroad — BBG Watch sources say that a presidentially-appointed member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors is guilty on all counts.

This kind of behavior also confirms that BBG employees are absolutely right in trying to hide their identity while exposing poor judgement and mismanagement on the part of top level BBG officials. They have good reasons to fear the anger of this particular BBG member and the anger of BBG executives who no doubt urged this presidential appointee to take some kind of action to counter their critics, some of whom are their own employees who rate them in official surveys as the worst leaders and managers in the entire federal government.

We’re happy to report, however, that there may be still after all some First Amendment protection of free speech at the BBG, although we would not advise the internal critics to reveal their identities just yet. Our sources tell us that other members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, including BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson, who is stepping down from his post, and senior Republican member Victor Ashe, apparently ignored the call for action from the BBG member who was deeply offended by BBG Watch news commentaries.

We are told that Isaacson and Ashe have tried to make the BBG more transparent but have encountered strong resistance from the BBG and the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) senior staff and from a few of their colleagues on the Board.

As we pointed out in our earlier commentary,  ‘Old white guys’ meet ‘cute young intern’ and First Amendment at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that anonymous free speech is protected and allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority,” the U.S. Supreme Court said.

China, Cuba, Russia … a Broadcasting Board of Governors member … U.S. Supreme Court. We stick with the last option.

Cute High School Intern

Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) officials have gotten so used to running their small federal agency like their own private country club that they still frequently forget that at least some of their meetings can now be viewed online.

While the video from the last BBG meeting was streamed live, the on demand link to the video has not worked since then.

Last Friday, the American public got a taste of the new corporate culture emerging at the agency in charge of U.S. international broadcasting even prior to the implementation of the current restructuring plan to remove the BBG as much as possible from the government and public sphere.

While the American people might not begrudge a little bit of humor in public meetings, because of its history of discrimination against various groups of employees, the BBG is not exactly the place where joking about young women seems appropriate.

At the BBG meeting on Janurary 13, Radio and TV Marti which broadcast to Cuba and are managed by the BBG, showed a short video of their recent broadcasting achievements. The video was narrated by a young female intern.

After the presentation of the video, which apparently impressed everyone in the room, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President Steven Korn said that he was planning to hire a cute high school intern to narrate his organization’s next promotional video. People laughed.

While the remark at the BBG meeting was greeted by most in the room as funny, some of those present, perhaps including BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson himself, might have felt just a little bit uncomfortable. Recently hired BBG officials, many of whom happen to be former CNN employees, are known to be prone to making socially awkward comments. We’re not talking here about Isaacson and VOA director David Ensor. But some of the others are apparently not as familiar with the etiquette of working for a public institution.

Old White Guys

As we have reported earlier, one top BBG official wrote not too long ago about “old white guys” in discussing his personnel decisions. BBG Watch sources identified the person as a former CNN associate of Chairman Isaacson. Anonymous sources also told us that some BBG members wanted to have the official fired but the majority decided to let him stay after first reversing some of his personnel actions and reaffirming their commitment to opposing discrimination.

BBG Watch wonders who it might have been.

First Amendment at the Broadcasting Board of Governors

In light of our disclosures of this and other scandals, it’s not surprising that some BBG members and members of their executive staff don’t like BBG Watch.

We have received a credible report that a presidentially-appointed member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors has urged other BBG members to take an unspecified action against BBG Watch for publishing anonymous posts and comments which this member found highly objectionable. Our sources did not report on the nature of the action sought by the BBG member.

There are also no reports that BBG Chairman Walter Isaacson or any other BBG member responded positively to this request. Our sources tell us that the BBG member was particularly incensed that BBG Watch has anonymous sources within the agency. Credible sources told us that this particular BBG member called us “cowards.” (Or was it Prime Minister Putin speaking about his political opponents in Russia? We’re not absolutely sure.)

Another source speculated that some BBG members can be more easily influenced than others by BBG bureaucrats who want to create panic to divert attention from their own mistakes.

Anonymous Speech

We take very seriously any report that a high level U.S. Government official questions the right of free speech, including anonymous speech, or any implication that our media activities may be countered by government action. We have already taken additional measures to protect the BBG Watch website, including creating mirror sites.

We also want to assure all our readers and contributors that we will not be intimidated and plan to continue our investigative reporting and commentary in the same manner as before.

The irony of a Broadcasting Board of Governors member questioning the right of using anonymous sources and anonymous speech to expose bad judgement mismanagement on the part of U.S. government officials is that the BBG’s stated mission is “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

The BBG website also states that U.S. international broadcasting serves “as a trustworthy source of news and as an example of a free, professional press in countries that lack independent media.”

The BBG website also states that “BBG broadcasters engage with audiences and promote dialogue through interactive programs and social networking.”

Questioning the First Amendment protections of free speech would not be good public diplomacy for an agency that is still part of the U.S. foreign policy establishment and is also a journalistic institution.

This particular BBG member perhaps also does not realize that much of the social media content on the BBG websites is in fact anonymous and the BBG has no idea who originates most of the comments. The BBG is in fact engaging in promoting anonymous criticism of autocratic foreign governments by investing heavily in Internet censorship circumvention technologies. In fact, the U.S. Congress gave the BBG $10 million for the project to enable anonymous Internet users overcome cyber censorship in countries like China.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that “anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment.” A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

Culture of Fear versus Transparency

BBG Watch anonymous contributors do not particularly like using anonymous sources, but reporting from and about a federal agency where top officials freely use phrases such as “old white guys,” “cute high school interns,” and “cowards,” leaves little room for maneuver. We are satisfied that BBG Watch reporting has already produced important reforms at the BBG.

We are also pleased that BBG Chairman Isaacson and senior Republican member Victor Ashe are supportive of greater transparency within the BBG as exemplified by their efforts to expand public access to BBG meetings. We hope that other BBG members will follow their example if they don’t already. But the culture of fear at the BBG is still extremely strong despite Governor Ashe’s efforts to improve employee morale.

About BBG Watch

BBG Watch is an independent website run by former and current BBG employees and other volunteers. It is sponsored by Free Media Online, a media freedom nonprofit NGO registered as a 501(c)3 public institution. BBG Watch reporting has contributed to a number of reforms at the BBG and saving jobs of journalists specializing in human rights reporting.

We have criticized the BBG decision to end Voice of America broadcasting to China, which was subsequently blocked through bipartisan action in Congress. We have also reported on discrimination against foreign journalists at the BBG-managed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and exploitation of Voice of America contract employees, including long delays in the payment of their salaries. After our reports were published, some of the contractors received their long-delayed payments.

If the BBG plan to de-federalize the Voice of America (VOA) is adopted, Americans will have even less to say how their money is spend on spreading America’s message abroad by a proposed new corporate entity. Public scrutiny of U.S. international broadcasting will be drastically diminished.

Removing the BBG and VOA from the public sphere into a corporate commercial sphere is likely to make them even less transparent and less accountable than they are now. It will also make them less able to represent America and American citizens and less able to offer a powerful message of support for free press and democratic values.

As our contribution to what we hope will be an unhampered public discussion, we will include in this section significant articles on the public diplomacy role of international broadcasting. The first link is to an article published last year by former Voice of America director Robert Reilly. His article is available online, link, on the MercatorNet website, which stands for: reframing ethical and policy debates in terms of human dignity, not dollars and cents or political calculation.

Message to US State Dept: evil is evil is evil

Here are some highlights from Robert Reilly’s article:

The State Department should not have been expected to do both diplomacy and public diplomacy, as they sometimes conflict. Public diplomacy attempts to reach the peoples of other nations directly over the heads of their governments. This can make the State Department’s job more difficult, as its responsibility is to work with the heads of those same governments and maintain good relations with them. The two missions should not reside in the same institution. Public diplomacy has suffered as a result. In short, since the dismantling of USIA, there has been no central US government institution within which policy, personnel, and budget could be deployed coherently to implement a multifaceted strategy to win the war of ideas over an extended period of time.

On its part, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) inherited all non-defense government broadcasting, including the Voice of America. The BBG became a stand-alone agency run by part-time board members, most of whom have had no experience in foreign policy or public diplomacy. The eight Board members exercise executive power, to the extent that eight CEOs can, and are not directly accountable to anyone.

Since the professional backgrounds of the governors have been mainly in American mass media, they have sought to replicate that media in government broadcasting by refashioning much of it with American pop culture – Radio Sawa being the primary example. Over the past decade, the BBG has seen fit to eliminate VOA’s services to Brazil in Portuguese, to Russia, to India in Hindi, to the Arabic world, and now to China in both Mandarin and Cantonese. [The plan to end VOA Chinese broadcasts was stopped due to a bipartisan Congressional intervention.] There seems to be a perverse logic at work here, in which it has abandoned attempts to reach the most important audiences in terms of our national strategic interests about who we are, what we are doing, and why.

In the Arab world, the VOA 12-hour, content-rich Arabic service was replaced with a 24-hour pop music station featuring the likes of Britney Spears, Jay Lo, and Eminem. The intellectual premise of this effort, as explained to me by the chairman of the board when I served as the director of VOA, was that “MTV brought down the Berlin Wall.” Radio Sawa has been proclaimed a success in attracting large youth audiences. However, as the dean of journalism in Jordan informed me, “Radio Sawa is fun, but it is irrelevant.” In a war of ideas, performing a lobotomy on your enemy might be a good move. It is almost unheard of to perform a lobotomy on yourself, and then to declare it a success. How would you like to have a superpower adolescent in your neighborhood?

Robert Reilly has worked in foreign policy, the military, and the arts. His most recent book is The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis. This paper was delivered at a seminar on “Fighting the Ideological War: Strategies for Defeating Al Qaeda”, organised by the Westminister Institute on May 25. Robert R. Reilly serves on the Advisory Board of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting.

As these BBG bureaucrats undermine critical programs, weaken U.S. public diplomacy media outreach abroad and eliminate American jobs, they collect large salaries and pay themselves hefty bonuses. BBG official claim that countries like Croatia, a NATO member, do not need U.S. information programs provided by VOA, but they have also tried to cut or reduce such programs to countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China.

BBG Watch wants to thank one of our supporters who provided us with information how American taxpayers can easily check on the salaries and bonuses of BBG officials.

Link to salaries of federal employees, including BBG officials.

“If you go to the website datauniverse.com, then to Federal Employees in the Public Payroll section, then to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, you can see the salary of every employee and, more importantly, if they received bonuses. Nearly every manager on the 3rd floor (that is where most BBG executive offices are located in Washington, D.C.) received a large cash award for FY2010. Seriously, some of these guys make $170,000 a year and then take a 10-thousand dollar bonus! It is shameful.”

BBG executives close down Voice of America broadcasting services, pay themselves hefty bonuses

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) executives, who have closed down the Voice of America (VOA) Croatian radio, TV, and Internet broadcasting service the day before Thanksgiving, have paid themselves tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses over the last two years and are expected to receive more such payouts this year. The BBG has also asked OPM for approval to hire a public relations guru at a salary of about $150,000. The BBG already has a well-staffed public and Congressional relations department.

BBG Watch has also learned that one of the main architects of the closures of foreign language broadcasting services at VOA is to receive soon a $10,000 pay raise. He is a member of the team of executives responsible for an unprecedented bipartisan rebuke to the BBG in the U.S. Congress. Congressional committees blocked the plan to terminate VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China and charged that the BBG lacks good judgement and transparency.

But the Voice of America’s Croatian Service, which did not receive similar attention in Congress, signed for the last time Wednesday, after 19 years of broadcast history that began during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Rather than to keep broadcasting to Croatia even at a reduced level to serve U.S. public diplomacy needs, BBG officials closed down the service. VOA Director David Ensor is new to his job and may not yet fully realize that this latest move is part of a strategy of undermining Voice of America’s special role as a news and public diplomacy channel for the United States. One of the BBG’s earliest moves after the 9/11 terror attacks was to eliminate all Voice of America programs in Arabic.

While VOA has each year fewer and fewer broadcasts to be managed, not a single highly-paid VOA or BBG manager has been asked to leave or to take a pay cut. Instead, their numbers keep growing with the money for their salaries and bonuses generated by cutting essential programs and eliminating broadcasting positions within the organization.

A VOA press release states that “VOA Croatian’s five-minute TV NewsFlash was broadcast daily on eight affiliate stations and focused on American news of relevance to Croatian audiences, including business, science, American culture, and politics. The popular Breakfast Show, a roundup of US, Croatian and world news, aired on radio for 19 years, without a single day of interruption. An evening radio show aired on shortwave and ten affiliate FM stations in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

Executives who ordered the termination of VOA radio and TV broadcasts to China and Croatia have been rated in government-wide employee surveys among the worst managers in the federal workforce. They chose Valentine’s Day to inform VOA Chinese language service journalists that 45 of them will lose their jobs and picked the day before Thanksgiving to close down the Croatian service. They are well known for their holiday surprises for Voice of America employees

Called “VOA Silencers” for trying to fire 45 VOA journalists specializing in human rights reporting at the time of intensified Chinese government crackdown of freedom of expression, BBG executives are likely to collect yet another round of bonuses on top of their large salaries. One of the chief policy planners, who is paid over $150,000 a year, will be getting a $10,000 on top of $2,500 bonus received in FY2010. However, due partly to the fiasco in Congress over the China proposal, he is rumored to be asked to essentially do nothing but to collect his salary. Another official received $160,000 in salary and a $7,500 bonus in FY2010. A marketing specialist made over $165,000 and received an $7,500 bonus. Their boss, whose salary in FY2010 was $170,000, received a $10,000 bonus in addition to all the usual generous benefits that come with federal employment, including subsidized health insurance, vacation, and retirement.

The same officials are denying basic employment benefits to full time contract employees who now constitute 45 percent of VOA workforce. Because some of these executives switch jobs between the BBG, which is a federal agency, and private broadcasting 501(c)3 entities managed by the BBG, some collect hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in combined salary and retirement benefits, all paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

At the time when the U.S. economy is struggling, millions of Americans are unemployed, and millions more could only wish to be making even a small portion of what the Broadcasting Board of Governors executives are making, these officials have been eliminating American jobs and giving money to Internet companies that outsource their work overseas. They are also signing contracts with foreign advertising agencies in countries like Russia to help drive visitors to their websites while firing broadcast journalists and engineers employees by the BBG in the United States. They are planning to shut down the BBG Transmitting Station in Greenville, North Carolina, and to put dozens of Americans out of work at this and at other broadcasting facilities and units.

BBG officials have also signed a contract with the giant consulting firm Deloitte, potentially worth $1.3 million. The contract is designed to give a blessing for their strategic plan, which they had already gotten BBG members to approve. It includes $150,000 in travel expenses. They also want to privatize the Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti. This action would put them in charge of yet another bureaucracy which would operate with fewer government restrictions and less oversight from Congress. Radio and TV Marti broadcast news to Cuba. The Cuban regime would welcome their privatization as a sign of the Obama Administration’s diminished support for democracy in Cuba.

BBG executives’ more immediate plan is to eliminate some of the journalistic and administrative independence that made U.S. government-funded stations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty successful in delivering highly-targeted news and defending human rights abroad. The merger plan would create a large corporate bureaucracy that would manage the BBG’s surrogate broadcasters: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Alhurra TV, and Radio Sawa. A top-ranking BBG official referred to some of the architects of RFE/RL’s surrogate radio operations as “old white guys” and wished for their quick departure.

Some of the members serving on the bipartisan Board, however, have begun to question the advice they are getting from the BBG executive staff. A senior Republican member, Ambassador Victor Ashe, expressed his opposition to extravagant spending by BBG bureaucrats while critical broadcasting operations are being eliminated or reduced and employees are denied basic benefits. During open BBG meetings, he received some support from a Democratic member Michael Meehan. Ashe announced that he plans to visit the Greenville transmitting station despite the objections of BBG officials who want to close it down.

BBG Chairman and former CNN executive Walter Isaacson, who was busy writing a biography of Steve Jobs, has allowed BBG bureaucrats to run the show without much supervision from the part-time Board. They developed a strategic plan to reflect Isaacson’s vision of privatizing the BBG and turning it into a CNN-like news agency. Critics say that the centralization of news gathering proposed under this plan would destroy the independence and the human rights focus of surrogate broadcasters like RFE/RL and Radio Free Asia (RFA).

Critics also say that privatization of the Voice of America and Radio and TV Marti would destroy their effectiveness as authoritative voices of the American government and the American people. American taxpayers would still have to pay for this new NPR-like structure, since the BBG staff wants to ask Congress to repeal the Smith-Mundt Act’s restrictions on the domestic distribution of BBG programs while still relying entirely for funding on Congressional appropriations. This is likely to cost U.S. taxpayers even more money than the current arrangement. Critics say that the BBG plan will weaken overseas broadcasts in support of democracy and human rights which are considered one of the essential non-military contributions to the war on terror and to countering anti-American propaganda.

###

VOA/BBG Press Release:

VOA Ends Croatian Broadcasts

Washington, D.C., November 23, 2011 — Voice of America’s Croatian Service signs off for the last time Wednesday, after 19 years of broadcast history that began during the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia, and ends with Croatia’s emergence as a democratic member of the European community.

VOA Director David Ensor called the service “a model of journalistic integrity that provided the people of Croatia with fair and impartial news during the dark days of civil war in the Balkans.” Ensor commended the service, which he said, “served as a vital source of independent reporting and insight into American policy.”

Voice of America established its Croatian Language Service on February 20, 1992, a time when the most brutal war since World War II was raging in the Balkans. Spun off from the former Yugoslav Service which had been broadcasting to the area since 1943, VOA Croatian broadcasts began on radio, but were quickly expanded into television. The service was one of VOA’s first to establish an online presence.

VOA Croatian’s five-minute TV NewsFlash was broadcast daily on eight affiliate stations and focused on American news of relevance to Croatian audiences, including business, science, American culture, and politics. The popular Breakfast Show, a roundup of US, Croatian and world news, aired on radio for 19 years, without a single day of interruption. An evening radio show aired on shortwave and ten affiliate FM stations in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In addition to news coverage, VOA Croatian served as a source of entertainment and cultural programming for more than a decade. Nearly 700 episodes of Saturday’s American Cultural Magazine were aired, with stories on leading entertainers, from blues guitar legend B.B. King, to Los Lobos, the Grammy-winning Los Angeles band that performed in Zagreb in 2010.

VOA Croatian Service Chief Zorz Crmaric called going off the air a “bittersweet moment” that comes as the country begins a new chapter in European integration. He noted Croatia is now a NATO member and is scheduled to join the European Union in 2013.

More:
Declinism redux?

Here are our comments:

1. The Broadcasting Board of Governors is promoting this video and confusing a lot of media reporters in the U.S. and elsewhere who have no idea that the BBG plans to end all Voice of America radio and TV broadcasts to China and to fire 45 VOA journalists who specialize in reporting on human rights topics in Mandarin and Cantonese. Their radio and TV reports are also available online on the VOA news website and social media sites, but these are blocked and censored by the Chinese cyber police. The BBG is not asking why these English video lessons are not blocked but they should, because this is what they want to offer if they succeed in ending VOA radio and TV to China. Members of Congress are trying to block this plan.

2. Jessica is delightful and very talented, but seriously, she is not different from other young Americans who appear in American movies seen in China and offer a similar glimpse into American life. Yes, she is a real person, not an actress. But she is not even identified with the Voice of America using its full name, just the letters VOA. Perhaps that’s why she’s still allowed on the Chinese Internet, but she soon may not be if she becomes too popular or identified closely with USG. And how is she going to express America’s real concern with human rights violations and other sensitive issues. She cannot and will not, otherwise she will be made to disappear from the Internet in China.

In the meantime, the Broadcasting Board of Governors plans to end all VOA radio and satellite TV transmissions to China on October 1. Despite jamming of shortwave radio and the possibility of interfering with satellite TV signals, these programs are the only channel for interviews with Americans concerned about human rights and democracy in China and for presenting a more sophisticated picture of America. They offer a broad spectrum of opinions and topics, including “OMG Meiyu” for those who are interested.

What the BBG really wants to do is to get rid of 45 journalists who provide a balance to the soft public diplomacy of English lessons. The BBG might as well do this, since all other news material from VOA will continue to be blocked on the Internet in China — it can only get through now on radio and satellite TV. Very few people in China can take advantage of the circumvention technology that may allow them to bypass the censorship. And using such technology is dangerous because, if they are not careful, it can expose them to the Chinese secret police — something the BBG does not want to talk about. Remember that the BBG cannot protect even its own VOA websites from successful cyber attacks by Iranian hackers who managed to place anti-American posters and slogans on more than 40 VOA news sites, while other hackers shut down VOA websites for days. Listening to radio and watching satellite TV is anonymous and safe.

The BBG members where so excited about this English teaching video at their last meeting earlier this month that they forgot to mention China in their statement on threats to media freedom around the world. Well, they did not really forget. If they did mention China, where a VOA correspondent had been temporarily detained and roughed up by the secret police earlier this year, they would call attention to their decision to end VOA radio and TV programs. They claim they need the money to produce more programs like “OMG Meiyu” and invest in social media. Well, VOA is blocked from social media in China, as are Twitter and Facebook. And also, using social media, if it can be used, is cheap — practically free. The BBG’s argument that they need millions of dollars for social media outreach in China is absolutely ridiculous. They use this argument to get rid of pesky journalists who still want to do human rights reporting. This mass firing and ending of broadcasts will free up a lot of money for executive positions and private contractors. I think “OMG Meiyu” is produced out of an apartment. One can do a lot on the Internet from home even with no money. Millions of individuals and organizations have proven that it can be done cheeply. Radio and TV broadcasting, on the other hand, costs money.

This is what BBG members really think: if we just produce more programs like “OMG Meiyu” we can reach a greater audience because the censors will not block them and we will influence more people. But influence with what and to what purpose? And who will be influenced? Not the courageous Chinese dissidents who are fighting for human rights. They will be discouraged, as they have told the BBG in articles written to protest the decision to end VOA broadcasts.

A video of the discussion is available at the Heritage Foundation website.

The panel was moderated by Dr. Helle Dale, Senior Fellow for Public Diplomacy (photo). The panelists were: former Voice of America Director David Jackson, VOA Chinese Branch Senior Editor Huchen Zhang, and Dan Dickey, President of Continental Electronics.

From the Heritage Foundation website — On October 1, Voice of America’s Chinese radio service will go silent, as U.S. international broadcasting abandons the airwaves and moves to the Internet. In the burgeoning age of new media, many, including Voice of America, seem to be questioning the continued relevance of shortwave radio. Yet, while the Internet offers great potential, U.S. public diplomacy cannot rest exclusively on the use of a single platform. This is particularly true where the prevalence of internet censorship is high. Just this month, for instance, China announced the creation of its State Internet Information Office (SIIO), intended to further expand and enhance China’s information dissemination policy, and leading many to question whether abandoning the airwaves is truly the best way to reach America’s audiences throughout the world. Join us as our guests discuss current U.S. strategy and the way forward in international broadcasting.

 Sourced from: Events – The Heritage Foundation

This public diplomacy misstep is one of many since President Obama took office and points to a total lack of leadership and planning within the White House and the State Department. Most recently, the White House failed to issue a traditional presidential proclamation for Easter, even though President Obama signed similar proclamations for Muslim and Jewish holidays. Other public diplomacy blunders included President Obama making the announcement of withdrawing U.S. missile defense shield from Poland on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland and his decision to go golfing on the day of the funeral for Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski who was killed in a plane crash in Russia.

Early in his term,  President Obama declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the 70th anniversary observances of the outbreak of  World War II which started with the attacks on Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The low-level of the U.S. delegation to that event was widely criticized and the delegation was slightly upgraded at the last moment.   President Obama also failed to attend the 10th anniversary observances of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The White House tried to justify these absences by the President’s busy schedule, but critics of President Obama point out that he takes more frequent vacations than other U.S. presidents.

Snapshot of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See Website on the day of Pope John Paul II's Beatification, May 1, 2011.

The lack of public diplomacy planning at the State Department prior to the beatification of Pope John Paul II  was evident from the websites of U.S. embassies in Rome and at the Vatican, both of which on May 1 had no text, photos or videos relating to the beatification ceremony for Pope John Paul II. Judith A. McHale is the current Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose job is to help lead America’s engagement with the people of the world. She has failed to prevent numerous embarrassing public diplomacy omissions and mistakes by the Obama Administration.

U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe have by and large ignored the recent 100th anniversary of President Reagan’s birth as an occasion for public diplomacy events that could highlight his contribution along with Pope John Paul II to bringing about the fall of communism in the region. Many embassies chose instead during that time to focus on promoting hip-hop music events as part of the State Department’s cultural diplomacy program.

The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw had a number of posts on its Facebook Page about Pope John Paul II and U.S. presidents whom he had met, including photos of the Polish pope with President Reagan and President Clinton. But the Embassy’s official website had nothing about the pope and his numerous visits to the United States.

President Ronald Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Faribanks, Alaska, 1984.

Other recent U.S. presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, were far more successful in managing their public diplomacy abroad, U.S. relations with the Vatican, and their relations with American Catholic voters. Ronald Reagan had a particularly close relationship with Pope John Paul II and consulted with him regularly on how to help the Solidarity human rights movement in Poland.

U.S. Ambassador to Malta Douglas Kmiec

The Obama Administration may have also offended some American Catholics by their treatment of the U.S. Ambassador to Malta Doug Kmiec, a conservative Catholic supporter of President Obama who recently offered to resign after State Department officials accused him of spending too much time promoting his religious views. Ambassador Kmiec is highly respected in Malta, where Catholicism is the official religion.

Related posts:

1. “Hunger for God and Love” – Interview with Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, Future Pope John Paul II
2. Who is the leader of the Free World? – Reagan, Bush, Obama – lessons in public diplomacy in response to anti-democracy crackdown in Belarus
3. Wojtyła’s Women: How Women, History and Polish Traditions Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church
4. Pope John Paul II’s 1979 Visit to the U.S. – VOA Video
5. Subversive U.S. Public Diplomacy Theme – Ronald Reagan

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

On February 15, 2011, Senator Dick Lugar released a report prepared by the minority staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In his letter accompanying the report, Senator Lugar wrote:

Official U.S. interest in China for political, economic and strategic reasons has been part of our foreign policy for decades. Most Americans, on the other hand, when they have
thought about issues outside our borders, have tended to focus on events in Europe and more recently the Middle East. But no more.

The latest Pew Research poll shows that for the first time Asia has now overtaken Europe, by a wide margin, as the area of the world most important to Americans. This is not that surprising given the extent to which the United States and China are currently entwined in our most complex bilateral relationship. While we are increasingly dependent on each other for credit and markets, we nonetheless eye each other warily as each country copes with the economic challenges confronting it. At the same time, U.S. global strategic dominance will face pressures from China’s growing military expenditures and nascent but rising nationalist sentiment. Greater focus on China is necessary not only to enhance our national and economic security but to improve our ability to compete with China in markets overseas as well.

Another U.S. Deficit -China and America- Public Diplomacy in the Age of the Internet

The U.S. Consulate General in Krakow, Poland, sent its Public Affairs Officer Benjamin Ousley Naseman to a conference “Ronald Reagan’s Crusade for Freedom” (Krucjata Wolnosci Ronalda Reagana) at the Jagiellonian University. The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia, helped to kick off a Ronald Reagan Film Festival, with opening remarks from Chargé d’Affaires Robert Gilchrist. In addition, the Embassy is bringing to Tallinn noted Reagan expert Dr. Lee Edwards, who will be the keynote speaker at a February 14 seminar organized by the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute and held in cooperation with the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, titled “Ronald Reagan 100: President Reagan’s Legacy and Estonian-U.S. Relations.”

But the vast majority of America diplomats treated Reagan’s 100 birthday as if it were a plague. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland — a country on which Ronald Reagan had focused more during his presidency than on any other nation in East-Central Europe — had Internet postings on World War II American photojournalist in Poland Julien Brian and the Holocaust Remembrance Day — both good public diplomacy themes but not really very relevant to the current state of U.S.-Polish relations. The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw was also promoting American hip-hop culture at what was described as “the biggest break dance event Rock The Floor featuring American b-boys Abstrak from New York as a judge,” but the embassy website homepage had nothing on Ronald Reagan’s support for the Solidarity movement and Poland’s independence. Why the U.S. embassy should be involved in pushing the style of American music and culture — known for its obscene, offensive, and misogynistic lyrics and behavior — in a mostly Catholic and fairly conservative country like Poland, is frankly beyond me. I think the Poles have much higher expectations of American culture and would benefit more from other examples — American music more appropriate for promoting goodwill toward Americans and appreciation for their cultural achievements.

The U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee Feinstein, an Obama appointee and one of Hillary Clinton’s former associates, did not mention the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth in his Ambassador’s Blog postings. There was also nothing on Ronald Reagan on the U.S. Embassy Warsaw Facebook Page. The U.S. Embassy Warsaw official Blog has not been updated in months. At least, Ambassador Feinstein did not object to the U.S. Consulate in Krakow participating in a Ronald Reagan birth anniversary observance. Krakow was a center of anti-communist resistance in Poland and remains a center of conservative thought. I don’t know to what extent the U.S. Consulate in Krakow was involved in organizing the Reagan-related conference or whether it simply responded to a local initiative, but at least the staff had the courage to send a speaker and post something about the event on their website. This is more than most U.S. diplomatic posts in the region have done.

The list of U.S. diplomatic posts in East-Central Europe which have completely ignored the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth is quite long, if one does not count automatic brief postings on a few embassy websites of a single America.gov article, which was written at the State Department in Washington. Not even the U.S. Embassy in Minsk, Belarus — a country still run by a post-communist dictator — bothered to mark the Reagan anniversary. The Minsk Embassy website prominently features an article on “New English Teaching Methodologies.” The embassy website does not even provide a link on its homepage to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which had posted recordings of former U.S. President George Bush and former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice(not President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton because they did not participate) reading the names of President Lukashenka’s political prisoners.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiev, Ukraine had a posting on the upcoming visit of Mary Wilson of The Supremes and “The Story of The Supremes Exhibit” — certainly, a better example of American culture than hip-hop — but again nothing on Ronald Reagan. Keep in mind that all of these are U.S. public diplomacy events subsidized in some way by U.S. taxpayers.

The U.S. Embassy in Tirana, Albania, features on its website a link to the State Department website page “Dreams for My Mother, Dreams for My Daughter” on empowering women and girls as a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy, but again nothing about Ronald Reagan. (I wonder how this public diplomacy theme in support of women’s rights squares with sponsoring hip-hop events by U.S. diplomatic posts. Mr. Obama likes hip-hop, but would Hillary Clinton approve spending U.S. taxpayers’ money on promoting musical culture described as “ignorant, misogynistic, casually criminal and often violent” ? )The U.S. Embassy in Prague, the Czech Republic, promoted the screening of Kings Row(1942), starring Ronald Reagan, along with other Hollywood films, but failed to note that last Sunday was the 100 anniversary of Reagan’s birth. The U.S. Embassy in Bratislava, Slovakia, at least highlighted the America.gov article President Ronald Reagan: A Legacy of Freedom in Europe, but like most U.S. embassies it did not sponsor any Reagan-related special events and its website‘s main “Spotlight” was “Haiti After One Year.” I was particularly amazed that the U.S. embassies in Latvia (U.S. Embassy Riga) and Lithuania (U.S. Embassy Vilnius) — the two countries, in addition to Estonia, most exposed to pressure from Russia — completely ignored the anniversary. But, of course, the vast majority of U.S. diplomatic posts in the region did as well. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow had nothing on Ronald Reagan on its homepage, and neither did the official Blog of U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Beyrle. The U.S. Embassy Moscow Facebook Page, however, did have a link to the website of the Voice of America Russian Service, which — to its credit — prepared a number of special programs and interviews to mark the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. (VOA Russian Service had interviewed former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.) We should all be grateful that the Voice of America is not under the direct control of the White House or the State Department, but VOA’s bipartisan managing body, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), had terminated VOA Russian radio broadcasts in July 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia. Only a very tiny segment of the Russian public looks these days at the VOA Russian website. The U.S. Consulate General in St. Petersburg– a city considered much more liberal than Moscow — had nothing on its website on Ronald Reagan. Ironically, the Consulate had posted a large banner publicizing its sponsorship of “Film Noir: The Other Side of Hollywood,” described as “Russia’s first-ever festival dedicated to film noir and the other side of Hollywood.” There was no mention of Ronald Reagan.

On the other hand, as reported by the Wall Street Journal “(Reagan Belongs to the World –
Countries in Eastern Europe join the celebration, in recognition of Reagan’s role in their liberation from communism“), the East Europeans themselves understood perfectly the significance of the Ronald Reagan’s 100 birthday anniversary. They have a far better sense of history than most U.S. diplomats in the region.

President Ronald Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks, Alaska, 1984.

In Poland, a special website devoted to the 100 anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birthday urged the Poles to sign an online thank-you card to honor the memory of the former U.S. president. A special Catholic mass was celebrated in Krakow to honor both Reagan and Pope John Paul, his partner in bringing about the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. NGOs, government bodies, and private citizens throughout the region organized numerous other events to celebrate Ronald Reagan’s legacy, thus putting U.S. diplomats, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, and the rest of the State Department to shame.

I would argue that almost nothing was done by U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe for this important anniversary because U.S. public diplomacy has become the domain of self-serving bureaucrats working within a broken, non-functioning system at the State Department. The current public diplomacy infrastructure had replaced the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), which was abolished during the Clinton administration. At least, American diplomats working for USIA enjoyed some measure of independence from the State Department’s political appointees, ambassadors and career political officers, and thus were able to take a longer view of American foreign policy interests. Even then, during the Cold War, I found that many career diplomats, including some USIA officers with whom I had worked at the Voice of America (VOA), did not have a very high opinion of Ronald Reagan. One USIA officer described Ronald Reagan as a raving lunatic after his “Evil Empire” speech, and, even while Ronald Reagan was at the White House, State Department political officers at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw attempted — unsuccessfully — to stop the Voice of America Polish Service from interviewing Solidarity leader Lech Walesa after he had been released from a communist prison.

Still, at least then, there were other Foreign Service Officers with whom I had professional contacts, who understood the importance of independent journalism and public diplomacy in support of human rights. Two of them became later U.S. ambassadors to Poland. While there were some differences between Democratic and Republican administrations, there was a general agreement on what represents good public diplomacy. Anyone who now thinks that there is such a thing as bipartisan public diplomacy designed to further long-term U.S. interests around the world regardless of who sits in the White House would have to conclude after watching the latest snubbing by American diplomats of the legacy of a former U.S. president — one who is particularly revered in Eastern Europe — that this idealistic assumption is no longer true. Most career State Department officials these days think first and foremost about who calls the shots at their embassies and in Washington, their performance evaluations, their next assignment, and their considerable perks. Keeping each one of these senior Foreign Service Officers abroad costs U.S. taxpayers at least $250,000 a year.

The State Department’s public diplomacy infrastructure has become highly bureaucratized and politicized. If we had a Republican president or even a less ideological Democratic president like Bill Clinton, I would bet that all or most U.S. diplomatic posts in Central and Eastern Europe would not miss Ronald Reagan’s birthday as an opportunity for a public diplomacy event or a special posting for their website. Even though most Foreign Service Officers probably don’t think much of Ronald Reagan, they would undoubtedly do something to mark the occasion with the different kind of leadership from the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But Barack Obama made it clear that he wants a “reset” with Russia and does not care much for public encouragement of human rights and pro-democracy movements a la Ronald Reagan. Only very few among the current generation of U.S. diplomats would dare to go against the tone set by the President and supported by the Secretary of State, even if she is not as keen as her boss on talking nicely to anti-American dictators.

A conspiracy theorist might think American diplomats gave the whole issue a lot of professional thought but ultimately concluded that calling attention to Ronald Reagan would cause the East Europeans to draw uncomfortable comparisons between President Reagan and President Obama. In my view, that was not the case.

One could even understand if not excuse this kind of thinking — giving priority to short-term foreign policy goals of a particular U.S. administration over long-term national interests. I’m afraid, however, that the truth is more prosaic. Having worked with American diplomats for over 30 years, I can say with some confidence that for most of them, if they were worried at all, they were worried primarily about their careers. Marking Ronald Reagan’s birthday with any kind of embassy-sponsored special events would be career-risky. It would look bad to their political bosses in the State Department and to the White House. For the vast majority, their decisions had nothing to do with what would be good for public diplomacy, long-term U.S. interests in the region, and expectations from the American taxpayers who pay their salaries. We no longer have many Foreign Service Officers of the same caliber as Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane or Public Affairs Specialist John H. Brown. Ambassador Bliss Lane resigned during the Truman Administration in protest against the continuation of FDR’s policy with regard to Poland. John H. Brown resigned in protest against George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Each represented the kind of diplomat who would not be afraid to risk his career to do what he thought was good for the United States.

In terms of effective public diplomacy themes in East-Central Europe, one could not ask for a better one than the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birthday. For the East Europeans, Ronald Reagan not only contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped the “Captive Nations” achieve full sovereignty and independence. Reagan also represents the final break in U.S. foreign policy from the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt who, in the words of the words of Ambassador Bliss Lane, had “sold down the river” Poland and other East European nations at Tehran and Yalta to Josef Stalin.

What the East Europeans see now is a partial return to Roosevelt-style diplomacy in their region. Just as Roosevelt had been fooled by Stalin, Obama has shown FDR-like naivety in dealing with Vladimir Putin and his ex-KGB team that now owns Russia and runs it. Celebrating Ronald Reagan’s legacy at U.S. diplomatic posts in East-Central Europe would have send a signal to the government leaders, the media and the general public that not all U.S. presidents can be fooled by autocratic leaders and not every U.S. president is ready to abandon important political and military commitments to America’s allies to suit his particular personal worldview. For showing that most Americans would not tolerate a betrayal of U.S. allies, the Reagan anniversary offered a highly useful public diplomacy opportunity in East-Central Europe.

But U.S. public diplomacy has indeed become an expensive farce. Consider this fact: among dozens or perhaps even hundreds of highly-paid U.S. diplomats and other State Department officials who knew in advance that President Obama was going to announce his controversial decision to cancel President Bush’s missile defense commitments to the Polish government, apparently not a single one tried to warn the White House that making the announcement on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland would be a highly embarrassing public diplomacy disaster. They also allowed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to embarrass herself with the Russian mistranslation of the “Reset Button,” and the “reset” idea itself was, in the words of Zbigniew Brzezinski, “childish” as a public relations stunt.

There is no longer bipartisan consensus of what U.S. public diplomacy ought to be and no strategic plan of action. Hundreds of U.S. Public Affairs Officers abroad and public diplomacy specialists at the State Department have been unwilling or unable to save the Obama administration from other highly embarrassing public relations missteps in the foreign policy arena. Why even bother to have the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs if promoting hip-hop music takes precedence in Eastern Europe over Ronald Reagan’s legacy of support for freedom and human rights and his contribution to ending the Cold War and the freeing of the region from Soviet domination. The United States and the Free World no longer have a leader willing to lead the struggle for democracy and human rights, and therefore it has no public diplomacy to support this long-standing U.S. foreign policy goal. Ronald Reagan was such as leader. Sadly, President Obama is not.

TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy is under threat?

For a moment on New Year’s Eve 2010, I thought the leader of the free world was still George W. Bush. The President of the United States reads a message of solidarity with the people of Belarus, whose rights and freedoms have been once again trampled by an authoritarian ruler. Except that those reading the message were a former U.S President and a former U.S. Secretary of State, both Republicans. They were joined other world leaders, former statesmen, and human rights activists — courageous individuals like former Czech President Vaclav Havel, human rights activist Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sakharov, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, and many others.

Former President Bush read the names of five Belarusian presidential candidates still being held in a KGB prison. The other participants read the names of other political prisoners in Belarus. But there was no high-ranking member of the Obama administration among the participants in the “Voices of Solidarity” project.

Most Americans and millions in the rest of the world expect the President of the United States to speak up forcefully when democracy abroad is under major attack. When shortly before Christmas 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland, there was not a slightest doubt that President Reagan would appear in front of television cameras to express the support of the American people for the Polish independent trade union movement Solidarity and its imprisoned leader Lech Walesa. In the last weeks of 2010, few expected President Obama to act forcefully and effectively in face of yet another attack against freedom and democracy in Belarus.

Both attacks on democracy supporters happened during a holiday season. President Reagan, who was in 1981 much older than President Obama is now, had showed remarkable energy, determination, and leadership in letting the world know what the United States thought about a communist dictator like General Jaruzelski. Much younger Barack Obama left Washington for a family vacation in Hawaii.

If you do not see the video of President Reagan’s Christmas address to the American people in 1981, try this link.

When elections in Belarus were stolen and democracy supporters beaten and imprisoned just before Christmas 2010, the White House issued a short written statement. Granted, the severity of repression in Belarus now has not reached the same level as in Poland in 1981, but presidential leadership in the U.S. was still woefully and significantly inadequate. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton issued a statement on the post-presidential elections situation in Belarus. It was short and, as the title suggests, without much bite. Again, it does not compare in any way to President Reagan’s numerous statements and speeches after the imposition of martial law in Poland.

If you cannot see the video of President Obama’s Christmas 2010 address, click here.

President Reagan with Pope John Paul II in Fairbanks, Alaska, 1984. In his numerous efforts to help Solidarity, President Ronald Reagan consulted with Pope John Paul II.

One could presume it was yet another of President Obama’s public diplomacy blunders, but unfortunately it is much more than that. This and other acts and omissions reflect his deliberate decision, taken at the outset of his presidency, to give up for all practical purposes the role of the leader of the Free World.

After two years, it is now obvious that President Obama assumed the office determined not to upset totalitarian dictators. Operating under the illusion that by avoiding an overly confrontational posture he’ll be able to negotiate concessions and help them to reform later, he has emboldened dictators and insulted numerous loyal U.S. allies.

Former Solidarity Leader, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Polish President Lech Walesa.

Many, especially those who had lived or still live under communist and other totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, knew perfectly well that this approach would result in a retreat for democracy. Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and other leaders in East-Central Europe even sent a warning letter to the White House early into the Obama presidency. Still some pro-democracy and human rights activists, especially in Western Europe, were initially impressed with his soft power diplomacy as a welcome alternative to military interventionism of George W. Bush. Granted, President Obama has not started any new costly and unnecessary wars, but a series of public diplomacy disasters over the last two years, culminating in his weak response to repression in Belarus just before Christmas 2010, have exposed him at home and abroad as an ineffective U.S leader.

President Obama’s public diplomacy strategy stems from his view of America as a threatening power, a popular theme among his left-wing friends and among revisionist academics who became his advisers on Russia and the Middle East. I became concerned that U.S. public diplomacy under his presidency was in crisis when not a single U.S. diplomat or any other official was able to advise him that announcing his unilateral decision to end George Bush’s anti-missile program in Central Europe on the day of the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland would be received by the Poles as an ultimate insult.

But the first real sign that confirmed to me President Obama’s intention to relinquish his role of leading the Free World in defending democracy was his refusal to meet Dalai Lama in an apparent effort to avoid upsetting the aging communist leaders in China. Former Czech dissident, human rights activist, statesman, playwright, and Nobel Prize winner Vaclav Havel said, after learning that President Obama had refused to meet the Dalai Lama, “It is only a minor compromise, but exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones, the real problems.”

When President Obama finally received Dalai Lama, the media released a photograph showing the Tibetan spiritual leader being ushered out of the White House by a side entrance, passing by a pile of trash bags. It was yet another example that no one in the administration was in charge of public diplomacy.

The answer to wielding influence abroad in defense of democracy is not blind, uninformed military interventionism of George W. Bush being pushed into war by advisers with a hidden agenda, but neither is it “resetting” of relations with ex-KGB spies and other opponents of democracy. President Obama could learn a lot from the leadership style of Ronald Reagan, who knew what he stood for and knew how to select and control his advisers and communicate his message to the American people and the world. But to be like Reagan, President Obama would have to first change his political philosophy and his vision of America. I don’t think that is likely to happen.

It is fairly clear by now that the Free World will have to wait for a new leader until the end of President Obama’s presidency. That role cannot be assumed by George W. Bush or Senator John McCain. Only the President of the United States, as the elected leader of the most powerful nation in the world, can assume this role, but only if he wants to. It is now obvious that President Obama does not want that role. In fact, he is ashamed of it, as he has demonstrated many times, delighting dictators and instilling fear among U.S. allies.

Snapshot from RFE/RL Website, January 02, 2010.

It’s a shame that public diplomacy on behalf of the American people, American values, and America’s long-term interests around the world is now being conducted not by the administration but has to be pursued by former U.S. leaders like George W. Bush, who is not particularly popular abroad. But if President Obama won’t find time to become a public voice in support of freedom, at least the former president has shown what many Americans think and that demonstrated that they won’t be silent when democracy abroad is in danger even if the current occupant of the White House prefers to stay on the sidelines.

RFE/RL President Jeff Gedmin

Interestingly, the initiative of conducting U.S. public diplomacy in defense of freedom has been taken up also by the U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which had played a major role in helping to bring down the communist system. I have been in the past critical of RFE/RL, especially its treatment of its own journalists, but many of these policies had been imposed on the station by former members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and the BBG’s executives in Washington, D.C. Under the leadership of Bush-era appointed president Jeff Gedmin, RFE/RL has been trying to fill the gap created by the lack of a long-term U.S. public diplomacy strategy in East-Central Europe. RFE/RL has been broadcasting messages of support for the people of Belarus and providing news about the struggle for democracy to a number of countries in Eurasia.

Unfortunately, without a high-profile support from the White House and the State Department, RFE/RL’s work will never have the same impact as it had during the Cold War. If anything, it further demonstrates the crisis of U.S. public diplomacy by sending a message that any change in American human rights policy and in relations with the countries of East-Central Europe will not come until the end of the Obama presidency. At least, RFE/RL is making it clear to its audiences that not all Americans agree with President Obama and his vision of America and the world.

Still it is unfortunate that practically the only voice on behalf of the majority of the American citizens who had voted against the Democratic Party in November 2010 and indirectly voiced their opposition not only to President Obama’s economic policies but also his foreign policy, is a radio station which is practically unknown to most Americans. Although it is funded by the U.S. Congress, RFE/RL is based in the Czech Republic and most of its employees are foreign journalists who have never been to the United States.

RFE/RL’s primary role has always been to serve as a surrogate domestic radio in the countries to which they broadcast. The role of explaining U.S. foreign policy and any opposition to it among Americans has always been assigned to the Voice of America, another U.S. government-funded international broadcaster which is based in Washington, D.C. and managed by the same U.S. Federal agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Snapshot of VOA English Service Website on Jan. 02, 2011.

Yet it appears from a quick review of its English and Russian websites that the Voice of America did not even report on the RFE/RL’s Belarus initiative or the fact that George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice participated in it as the most prominent Americans. A search for “Bush, Belarus, and RFE/RL” on the VOA websites did not return any results.

If these two stations, working under the same BBG management, cannot consult with one another, it’s rather obvious that no one in Washington is in charge of coordinating public diplomacy and international broadcasting.

What a big difference compared to Christmas time in 1981 during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, when I received numerous phone calls at home late at night from officials of the now defunct United States Information Agency (USIA) who wanted to know what kind of assistance the Voice of America’s Polish Service, where I was a managing editor, needed to expand immediately its medium wave and shortwave radio broadcasts to Poland.

The Voice of America has not had any programs in Belarusian. It used to broadcast, however, radio programs in Russian, a language which is widely understood in Belarus. What made VOA largely ineffective in East-Central Europe was the BBG ‘s decision to terminate Russian radio programs in 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia. The BBG also ended all VOA programs in Central European languages.

The VOA English Service in the meantime has been broadcasting numerous news reports in support of President Obama’s “reset” policy with the Kremlin with very little balancing input from Republican lawmakers and other responsible critics of the administration — a legal requirement for VOA journalists under the VOA Charter approved by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Gerald Ford.

One particularly one-sided VOA English Service analysis of U.S.-Russian relations, which completely ignored any Congressional and other U.S. criticism of President Obama’s approach to managing relations with the Kremlin, was first broadcast in English and then translated and put on the VOA Russian website. It was also translated by other VOA language services which lack resources to originate their own, more balanced reporting.

And while democracy supporters in Belarus were still being rounded up and independent media outlets raided by the secret police, VOA and BBG officials issued a self-congratulatory press release bragging about VOA’s ability to communicate with the audience in Belarus through the Internet and social media. They failed to mention that social media sites were blocked in Belarus by the regime during the contested elections and the violence that followed. They also failed to note that Internet access in Belarus is still very limited, and that the number of visitors from Belarus to the VOA Russian Service website, if they even can be accurately counted, is statistically insignificant.

Only a few days after the issuing of the deceptive press release, there was nothing left on VOA Russian Service website home page Sunday to indicate that Belarus was still a significant U.S. foreign policy concern. In fact, there was not a single news item on Belarus. Neither VOA Russian or VOA English home page features any banners with a link to more coverage of dramatic events in Belarus — something human rights defenders would certainly welcome.

The State Department website, state.gov, when I checked it on Sunday, January 2, had nothing on its home page on Belarus. Another State Department website, America.gov, had on its home page only one link to the statement on presidential elections in Belarusdelivered by the charge d’affairs of the United States Mission to the OSCE. Again, it was short and without any bite: “The United States has made clear throughout its engagement with the government of Belarus that the government’s respect for human rights and the democratic process is at the center of our bilateral relations. The actions taken by Belarusian authorities following the elections represent a clear step backwards on these issues.” There were no “Solidarity with Belarus” banners of any kind on the State Department websites, but then U.S. diplomats should not be expected to do anything that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would not want them to do. The example has to come from the top.

The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale

The Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, who — according to the State Department website — “leads America’s public diplomacy outreach, which includes communications with international audiences,” is Judith McHale, appointed to this position by President Obama. But one could also say in her defense that nothing she did not do President Obama really wanted to be done. He certainly did not show much interest himself in the tragic events in Belarus. State Department officials are pursuing his public diplomacy, not necessarily public diplomacy serving long-term U.S. interests.

In 1981, VOA Polish Service did not have a website, but millions listening to our radio programs knew that the United States was fully behind the people of Poland. But then there was also no doubt what President Reagan, the White House, and the State Department stood for.

During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, U.S. public diplomacy had a powerful message in support of freedom, and U.S. international broadcasting played its journalistic role of reporting on it. While I can understand that VOA English and Russian services cannot report on something that the Obama White House and the State Department are NOT doing to keep Belarus in the news, they could at least report more on what others outside of the administration have been doing to draw attention to the violations of human rights which continue everyday, even when U.S. officials and many VOA and BBG managers are on a holiday vacation.

In light of all these developments, the initiative of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to broadcast the message to Belarus from former President George W. Bush and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is highly commendable. It’s vastly better than the totally ineffective public diplomacy outreach to Belarus from the Obama administration. Let’s hope that RFE/RL’s creative initiative will do some good, especially when Bush and Rice are heard alongside of many non-American statesmen and human rights activists.

But the participation of George W. Bush and the prominent placement of his photo on the RFE/RL’s website — but not on the VOA website — also send another powerful public diplomacy message, and not a very good one: the pilot of the Free World is still missing from the plane. The people in Belarus and in other countries under dictatorships are justified in asking who will be leading America in its support for human rights and democracy for the next two years. Unfortunately, they have already concluded, that it is not going to be President Obama.

We should be grateful that we still have Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Americans like George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, but these are not U.S. institutions and leaders who can have the greatest possible impact on public opinion abroad. The leadership in support of democracy has to come from the President and the White House to be taken seriously by dictators and authoritarian rulers like Russia’s ex-KGB spy Vladimir Putin. That type of leadership has been missing for the last two years.

As a former United States Information Agency and Voice of America employee with over 30 years of U.S. government service, my unofficial and subversive — from the perspective of the current White House and the State Department — public diplomacy message for foreign audiences is that President Reagan’s response to events in Poland in 1981 was much more typical for what most American’s would want now than President Obama’s practical non-response to the assault on democracy and human rights in Belarus.

Another unofficial public diplomacy message — again for what it’s worth since I have absolutely no current connection to the administration — is that President Obama’s foreign policy should not be always identified with the desires of the American people. In other words, democracy supporters abroad should not blame the American people and the United States for President Obama’s weak support for human rights. It is also worth remembering, especially in light of the results of the 2010 U.S. Congressional elections, that Barack Obama may no longer be president in 2013 and that American voters may soon help bring U.S. foreign policy back on its more traditional course.

About Ted Lipien

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980′s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news programs to Ukraine and Russia. After leaving U.S. government service, he founded Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a California-based NGO which supports media freedom worldwide.

He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church”(O-Books – June 2008). The book, which describes Pope John Paul II’s views on feminism, also includes evidence of the importance of Western radio broadcasts during Karol Wojtyla’s life in communist-ruled Poland and in the first ten years of his papacy. The book also has references to the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by journalists covering the Polish pope.

This commentary by Ted Lipien may be republished in full or in part with attribution to FreeMediaOnline.org.

Related posts:

1. Why U.S. Public Diplomacy No Longer Works and Can It Be Fixed?
2. US Public Diplomacy Failure to Reach Out to the Russians After Terrorist Attack in Ingushetia – FreeMediaOnline.org (Free Media Online Blog)
3. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Faces Ethnic Discrimination Charges at the European Court of Human Rights – Free Media Online Blog (FreeMediaOnline.org)
4. Walesa on Obama’s Missile Diplomacy – American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland Update
5. American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 27, 2010 — On the day the U.S. Senate voted to approve the new arms reduction treaty with Russia, I found an article on the State Depatment’s website, America.gov, which gave a long list of the START treaty’s benefits lauded by the Obama administration but failed to note any of the objections from some key Republican lawmakers and other critics. I posted a short comment that a website devoted to public diplomacy, with a name that implies that it represents the views of the entire American government and the American public, should try to present a more balanced perspective and mention some of the difficulties in getting the U.S.-Russian agreement approved by the Senate.

Within only a few minutes my comment was removed. After successfully challenging censorship for more than 30 years by bringing balanced news to communist-ruled Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and other countries, I was finally successfully censored by my former employer, the United States government.

While I was in charge of the Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the Jaruzelski regime crackdown on Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement, I managed to ignore a few minor attempts by State Department officials to censor VOA news content. Of course, the same government is now censoring members of the U.S. Congress, so the removal of my comment seems hardly significant but is typical for this administration. After leaving my last government position of acting associate director of the Voice of America, I founded and began working for Free Media Online, an NGO promoting independent journalism worldwide, which explains my continuing interest in government censorship, propaganda and public diplomacy.

The current problem with having effective U.S. public diplomacy is largely due to the recent breakdown of domestic consensus on important values and foreign policy issues that existed during the Cold War, but bureaucratic inertia and incompetence also play a very large role. As a journalist, former government employee, manager, and executive, I had a direct knowledge of the inner-workings of the Voice of America, the now defunct United States Information Agency, the State Department, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. I have never seen U.S. public diplomacy in such a crisis as it is now, not even during the George W. Bush administration.

One could ask how the United States government can engage in shaping public opinion abroad if the President publicly accused Republican senators of playing politics with the START treaty? Even if it were partly true for some lawmakers, such a public accusation reported to the entire world is unprecedented, especially since Senator McCain and other prominent Republicans raised some serious questions about START and President Obama’s overall approach to dealing with the authoritarian rulers in the Kremlin. This kind of public rebuke of U.S. lawmakers is almost equivalent to members of Congress criticizing the administration while on their trips abroad. It’s simply not done and it is terrible public diplomacy.

But regardless of how bitter or divided are the current foreign policy debates in the United States, there can be no effective public diplomacy if the administration is afraid to or does not want to tell foreign audiences what Americans really think and say about foreign and domestic issues. Censoring members of Congress by State Department officials is particularly outrageous, but in some cases even professional journalists employed by the U.S. government practice self-censorship or promote the administration’s policies, because they agree with them, without regard for full accuracy and balance.

I have checked the Voice of America’s recent coverage of the START treaty debate and found that the VOA English Service devoted about 90 percent of its online START news content to views in support of the treaty. While a VOA spokesperson described my claim as incorrect, a text analysis of all recent online VOA English Service stories on this subject can be easily done by anyone using an word count application. By law, the Voice of America, which is funded by American taxpayers to communicate with audiences abroad, is required to offer balanced news coverage.

I’m not arguing that public diplomacy cannot be effective when there is no strong domestic consensus on foreign policy. But to be effective, especially if there is no broad consensus, it must be conducted professionally by individuals and organizations devoted above all to promoting long-term U.S. national interests. Public diplomacy is sometimes described as strategic communications, which implies pursuing U.S. strategic interests, which may not be the same as short-term foreign policy goals of a particular administration. They may later turn out to be misguided. This should be a primary lesson for all current and future State Department officials engaged in public diplomacy.

It is unlikely however, that an effective organizational setup can be established within the U.S. government for formulating implementing long-term public diplomacy goals or that the current structures can be reformed without strong pressure from the U.S. Congress and the American public.

Public diplomacy and international broadcasting have not been a high priority issue in the United States after the end of the Cold War. There is a small chance, however, that this may change as a result of old and new foreign policy blunders, revelations by Wiki Leaks, but especially due to new activism on behalf of individuals and organizations using new media, if such citizen initiatives achieve a certain momentum and attract the attention of sympathetic members of Congress.

We can be fairly sure that the public diplomacy and international broadcasting bureaucracy is not going to reform itself from within without constant public and Congressional scrutiny, which fortunately is increasing due to the power of social media. In addition to the lack of domestic political consensus on foreign policy, one of the other key obstacles to overcome is the incompetence of government bureaucrats. It has now reached new levels even at the State Department and the White House.

Another major difficulty to overcome by the same bureaucrats who are part of the problem is the revolution in quick dissemination of news, including the leaking of secret government communications by Wiki Leaks and others. Very few U.S. government officials in charge of public diplomacy have the necessary training and experience in journalism and new media. Again, without public criticism and pressure, they are not likely to change their way of conducting public diplomacy.

Why are U.S. government officials unable to stop embarrassing foreign policy and public diplomacy blunders? We no longer have at the highest levels independently-minded Foreign Service officers like Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane who resigned to register his protest against the sellout of Poland to Stalin by President Roosevelt and the lack of proper response to the fraudulent post-war Polish elections by the Truman administration.

In fact, not a single highly-paid U.S. diplomat or White House official managed to prevent President Obama from insulting our Polish allies when he made his announcement of the cancellation of the Bush missile defense plan in Central Europe on the anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Soviet Union. No advisor was also able to convince President Obama that his refusal to meet Dalai Lama at the White House, in an apparent effort to please the communist leaders in China, would send a powerfully negative signal to human rights and democracy activists around the world and to America’s democratic allies. And when the Voice of America fails to deliver news to Belarus during the recent crisis, the bureaucrats who terminated VOA Russian radio broadcasts issue a self-congratulatory press release.

Numerous public diplomacy blunders of this kind raise questions about the ability of U.S. government officials to advise presidents and to manage strategic communications with the outside world. While the current president and his administration seem particularly incompetent, the George W. Bush administration did not fare much better in public diplomacy abroad, although it managed to develop a successful pro-Iraq war propaganda at home — propaganda that was not effectively challenged by the American media. There is a solution, however, to this problem. It involves a much greater reliance on independent analysis, courage to challenge political appointees, applying journalistic standards of fairness and balance, and a greater appreciation of the sophistication of foreign audiences.

The START treaty debate is a good example of how public diplomacy should have worked but did not. Telling the Russian public and the Kremlin through VOA and America.gov that the START treaty enjoyed widespread support and its approval by the Senate was a piece of cake was not only factually wrong. It was also bad public diplomacy and bad for long-term U.S. interests. It mislead foreign audiences and it may make the Russian leaders even more inclined to make further demands on the Obama administration for additional concessions. It assumed that foreigners who are consumers of U.S. government-generated news and information are morons with no access to alternative sources of information.

I’m not saying that the Obama administration could not have still bragged about being able to get the Senate’s approval for the treaty, but a balanced message would have been far more credible and, for some East and Central Europeans, somewhat more reassuring. It would have been educational for the majority of the Russian public which supports Prime Minister Putin’s KGB-like tactics in dealing with the opposition, independent journalists, and leaders like President Obama. The impression left by the State Department’s America.gov website and the Voice of America is that nothing much matters to the Obama White House than making deals with the Kremlin, not even the discovery of sleeper Russian agents in the U.S., their hero welcome in Russia by Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev, and a statement by a Kremlin insider that assassins are being sent to America to track down and kill a former Russian spy who betrayed them.

Telling the whole truth and even stressing the objections to the treaty would have been a good lesson in American domestic politics for the Russians and their leaders. It could have sent also a signal to worried U.S. allies in East-Central Europe that the American people and their representatives in Congress are beginning to pay a close attention to President Obama’s foreign policy and that his political future is now in doubt after the 2010 congressional elections.

The public diplomacy message, as it was delivered by the State Department and independently through the Voice of America news, could only be described as boring and naive journalism, almost an insult to the intelligence of foreign audiences. It was not much different from Kremlin-style propaganda. Considering that foreign media are apparently one of the target audiences for the America.gov website, it’s highly doubtful that any foreign journalist would use such one-sided material. It also made a mockery of the State Department’s promotion of objective journalism and media freedom abroad. The Voice of America did not do not much better in that respect.

What could make U.S. public diplomacy abroad more effective? We could start by offering better education in diplomatic history in American high schools and colleges. Perhaps then we could elect presidents who would have some knowledge of history and were able to gain some meaningful foreign policy experience. The same goes for selecting the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and the Secretary of Defense. One could very well ask where were Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates when President Obama was getting ready to make his missile defense announcement? Did none of them study European history? If they were too busy to advise President Obama on the timing of one of the most significant foreign policy announcements of his presidency, where was the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith A. McHale?

The next step is the selection of future U.S. diplomats. The testing standards should be set much higher and candidates should be checked for their willingness to raise effective objections to bad and naive decisions of their superiors, even at the cost of their careers.

Making public diplomacy independent of the State Department, as it was more of less during the Cold War when the United States Information Agency (USIA) was charged with managing direct communications with foreign audiences, would help, assuming it was led by a high-profile, independent and experienced professional with direct access to the President and the Secretary of State.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which has mismanaged the Voice of America for years, should be abolished and journalistic independence and standards at VOA and other government-funded U.S. international broadcasters significantly strengthened under some type of public monitoring and oversight.

The Congress should above all insist that the U.S. foreign policy establishment accept the fact that when there is no clear domestic consensus on foreign policy and other issues, U.S. officials in charge of communicating directly with audiences abroad be required to present a balanced message. A balanced message and telling the whole truth is in the long run more credible and better for promoting American interests abroad than one-sided government propaganda.

I have seen tremendous bitterness of Polish media, politicians, and average citizens as a result of President Obama’s policies toward East-Central Europe and Russia. While some blamed specifically President Obama, most of it has been directed against “the Americans” and “the United States.” Very few Poles tried to distinguish between President Obama’s particular assumptions about the Russian leaders and America’s long term support for democratic values and nations like Poland which are victims of bullying by authoritarian regimes of their much bigger neighbors.

Part of the new public diplomacy message could be that U.S. foreign policy mistakes, such as the sellout of Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta, are eventually discovered and reversed because the American people are not going to stand for policies that go against basic American values, once they know the full facts. History teaches that they won’t. But my friends in Central and Western Europe tell me that it may take new U.S. administrations decades to reverse the damage done to relations with America’s European allies by President Obama’s so far futile attempts to curry favors with the Kremlin at the expense of solid American friends in the region.

I don’t really expect the State Department to come up with a sophisticated message that promotes President Obama’s goals while explaining historical and strategic objections to his policies. America.gov could, however, try to pay slightly more attention to the critics of the Obama administration. The Voice of America could, with even fewer problems, offer in-depth, objective and balanced reporting because its journalistic independence is guaranteed by the Congress. Unfortunately, the BBG terminated all VOA broadcasts and online reporting to Central Europe long time ago. It also ended VOA Russian radio programs in 2008, just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia.

This brings me to my final point on additional and alternative ways of conducting U.S. public diplomacy abroad. I don’t expect much action from the Obama administration, and even under the best circumstances, the U.S. government bureaucracy is not likely to be able to overcome its internal barriers to promoting effectively and without political bias long term, strategic U.S. interests.

While it was difficult for citizen public diplomacy to be effective during the Cold War due to the high costs of communicating and overcoming communist censorship, the Internet makes it possible now to achieve some form of limited direct communication with the public in most foreign countries. Individuals and organizations in the United States can help to expose foreign policy and public diplomacy mistakes, demand action, and in some cases communicate directly with audiences abroad.

Unfortunately, however, citizen diplomacy is not the complete solution to the current problem. Statements and actions by NGOs do not have, again in most cases, the same impact as communications on behalf the of the U.S. government, and NGOs simply lack the resources available to federal agencies. So whether we like it or not, NGOs cannot completely replace the U.S. government in this area of foreign policy. Greater scrutiny and reform of the U.S. public diplomacy establishment must therefore become a goal of all individuals and organizations concerned with the state of America’s relations with her allies and the rest of the world.

Related posts:

1. US Public Diplomacy Failure to Reach Out to the Russians After Terrorist Attack in Ingushetia – FreeMediaOnline.org (Free Media Online Blog)
2. Sen. Voinovich criticizes Obama for public diplomacy disaster
3. Misleading foreign audiences – America.gov or America.STATE – U.S. Senate Ratifies New START Treaty
4. Walesa on Obama’s Missile Diplomacy – American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland Update
5. Voice of America English programs go the way of Voice of Russia, says former VOA journalist

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

Supported entirely by U.S. taxpayers through a Congressional appropriation to the BBG, RFE/RL originates radio and Internet programs from its headquarters in the Czech Republic and news bureaus throughout Eurasia. It employs hundreds of foreign nationals and broadcasts in 28 languages to 21 countries of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, as well as to Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Anna Karapetian and other former RFE/RL journalists have argued that with the approval of the BBG, the radio station has been for many years using an old Communist-era Czechoslovak law which allows it to apply special terms of employment for its contract journalists brought to the Czech Republic from other countries.

The fired RFE/RL journalists claim that by exempting them from some of the current Czech labor regulations and applying its own personnel policies, RFE/RL has been discriminating against them and denying a large group of foreign-born broadcasters some of the essential legal protections which are available to RFE/RL’s American and Czech employees.

RFE/RL insists that it is in full compliance with U.S. and Czech labor laws and from time to time must reduce employment due to shifting priorities and budget restrictions.

In court cases against RFE/RL and in articles published in the local media and posted on the Internet, the journalists complained that they could be fired at any time without being given a specific reason and an opportunity to appeal the termination of their employment. They also charged that they could not receive their severance pay if they refused to give up the right to challenge their termination in court.

Anna Karapetian, a mother of three minor children, had been fired under this procedure after 12 years of what appears to be exemplary employment at RFE/RL. She refused to sign her termination agreement and sued RFE/RL in Czech courts.

RFE/RL’s treatment of foreign-born journalists has generated a lot of negative publicity in the Czech Republic and in some of the countries to which RFE/RL directs its radio programs, including Russia.

Earlier this year, Czech senator Jaromir Stetina, deputy Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Defense and Security, and a member of the Senate Commission on International Support for Democracy, called discrimination of RFE/RL foreign employees “patently indecent, unfair, cynical and hypocritical.” The purpose of RFE/RL programs, specified by the U.S. Congress, is to promote free flow of information and development of democracy. The fired journalists claim that discriminatory employment practices are also inconsistent with RFE/RL’s mission statement which calls for the station to serve as model for local media.

Another former RFE/RL employee Snjezana Pelivan, whose employment had been terminated in a similar manner, has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, also claiming discrimination on the basis of national origin. Prior to the latest ruling, Czech court decisions found that the firing of Ms. Pelivan and Ms. Karapetian by RFE/RL did not violate Czech laws.

In overturning Anna Karapetian’s firing, the Czech Court ruled that it had enough evidence and did not need to hear from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Karapetian requested Mrs. Clinton’s testimony as an ex officio member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors which has the ultimate power over management and personnel practices at RFE/RL

RFE/RL can appeal the latest Czech court decision.

Sources:

Information Centre ICCEE CAUCASUS – EASTERN EUROPE, Prague, Czech Republic “Czech Court to American Radio Free Europe”

Информационный центр ICCEE КАВКАЗ – ВОСТОЧНАЯ ЕВРОПА (CAUCASUS – EASTERN EUROPE), Prague, Czech Republic

“Чешский суд американскому Радио Свободная Европа: В Чехии нет места американским законам. В показаниях Хиллари Клинтон нет необходимости”

First, President Obama made public his strong desire to “reset” relations with Moscow, based apparently on a naive assumption that Russian leaders would help him deal with nuclear Iran, as if helping the U.S. could ever advance their own authoritarian ambitions. He later declined the Polish government’s invitation to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the outbreak of World War II, which was held in Gdansk, the birthplace of Solidarnosc, on September 1, a date of great historical importance to the Poles. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was there along with other foreign dignitaries.

This American diplomatic snub, combined with the fact that the White House and the State Department were silent during the summer, as various Russian government officials and Kremlin supporters defended Stalin and his pre-World War II pact with Hitler, did not escape the attention of Polish leaders and the Polish public. The Hitler-Stalin pact resulted in Poland’s partition by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with the Soviet attack launched on September 17, 1939.

The final blow came when President Obama made his decision to cancel U.S. plans to build the anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and chose to announce it on the very day the Poles were commemorating the tragic anniversary of the Soviet invasion of their country. Countless public diplomacy experts in the White House and the State Department, including President Obama’s future ambassador to Poland, did nothing to prevent this completely avoidable insult. Wired headline said it all: Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day. Love Uncle Sam.

Alarmed by naive foreign policy statements coming from Washington, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and other Central European leaders had sent a letter to President Obama in July 2009, warning him of the Kremlin’s aggressive behavior toward Russia’s neighbors. The mishandling of the ballistic missile defense (BMD) issue and subsequent events have shown that their alarm was justified, but their warnings have been ignored.

Finally, after an outcry of media criticism following the September 17 missile shield cancellation announcement, the White House hastily dispatched Vice President Joe Biden on a face-saving mission to Central Europe. While visiting Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic, Mr. Biden praised the courage of pro-democracy demonstrators who toppled communist regimes in 1989 while facing tanks and occasional gunfire.

But these Central Europeans, who easily saw through communist propaganda and like to match actions with words, could not fail to notice that only a few days earlier Mr. Biden’s boss had refused to meet in Washington with the revered Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. This was apparently out of fear of offending the aging Chinese communist leaders, who were not brandishing guns but merely frowning at him thousands of miles away from the White House. U.S. NATO allies in Central Europe also learned from news reports that, citing scheduling conflicts, President Obama had canceled his plans to attend the 20th anniversary observances in Germany of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will represent the U.S. Hoping to score a public diplomacy coup, Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev later announced that he would attend along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a score of other heads of state.

Mr. Obama is too busy to go to Berlin to honor those who fought against communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The White House did say that he would meet the Dalai Lama, but only after his official presidential visit to China. Reacting to this news, former Czech president and human rights activist Vaclav Havel sadly observed that “these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones.”

Repeated diplomatic blunders of the Obama administration embolden dictators who now see the U.S. president as a weak and ineffective leader. They are likely to act upon this perception by further restricting human rights and press freedoms in their countries, while also threatening their smaller neighbors. This is bad news for America and the spirit of freedom that sustained the 1989 peaceful overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe.

The White House would like everyone to believe that bad translators and hostile media are misinterpreting President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives. The State Department recently blamed a Polish translator for undiplomatic remarks by President Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw, Lee A. Feinstein, who hinted in a television interview that Poland plans to increase its engagement in Afghanistan.

While the hint was believed to be accurate, Polish government officials were furious that it was made public before foreign minister Sikorski’s scheduled visit to Washington. They did not want the Polish public to learn about it from the U.S. ambassador while sensitive negotiations were still being conducted. To make things worse, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled her meeting with Sikorski when she decided to extend her trip to the Middle East.

The latest diplomatic crises with Poland show a new level of incompetence as well as arrogance of the new Obama administration foreign policy team. The real problem with Obama diplomacy are not bad translators and journalists, but naive assumptions, surprising arrogance and dangerous incompetence. The world needs a U.S. president whose diplomacy is not lost in confusion.

Ted Lipien was in charge of Voice of America radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity movement’s successful struggle for democracy. He now runs a media freedom nonprofit in San Francisco, CA.

 Sourced from: TedLipien.com

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For a visit that was presented by the White House as a very important diplomatic mission, the U.S. public diplomacy team did close to nothing, revealing perhaps that the trip was more about damage control and was not so important after all. On the other hand, the U.S. has not had an effective public diplomacy operation since the United States Information Agency, USIA, was disbanded after the end of the Cold War. State Department diplomats did not prevent the Obama White House from announcing the missile shield removal decision on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

Vice President Biden’s trip was designed to repair the public relations damage, but the White House has not posted any photos or videos from his visit to Poland. The Voice of America, VOA, a U.S. government-funded international broadcaster, did not send a reporter with the vice president on his trip to Central Europe. VOA has not had any radio, TV or Internet programs in Polish for many years.

VOA posted on its English-language website a short text and audio report by Hilary Heuler, a freelance reporter based in Poland who quoted an unidentified woman in Warsaw as saying that “she was happy the shield was canceled because she does not think Poland needs to be defended from anyone, even Russia.”

She also reported that Mr. Obama’s announcement last month that he was canceling the planned Bush-era missile shield ruffled a lot of feathers in Poland. Some politicians claimed the United States had abandoned the region in order to repair relations with Russia, which strongly opposed the previous missile plan. Polish newspapers ran alarming headlines about betrayal and the triumph of Moscow. But Biden assured Poland the United States and NATO are still committed to defending the region, VOA report pointed out.

VOA stringer Hilary Heuler also filed another, more analytical report, Missile Defense High on Agenda as Biden Tours Central Europe.* Listen to VOA Report

She quoted Jan Filip Stanilko, an analyst at the Warsaw-based Sobieski Institute, a political think tank, who explained why the old Bush administration plans made Poland feel more secure.

“The main advantage was having a stable American installation in Poland, something which is built, unmovable, and which may be the reason to defend this installation and country,” he said. “The Patriot missile is moveable, and it’s obviously not enough because we need 20 such missile batteries and we got only one.”

The VOA report also pointed pointed out that many Poles assumed the U.S. decision to cancel the shield was an attempt to cozy up to Russia, which was strongly opposed to the original plans. The White House denies that this was the case. But even the Voice of America stringer in Warsaw noted that “the timing of the announcement was undeniably clumsy, coming on the same day that Poland commemorated the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in World War II.”

Neither the Voice of America nor the White has released any video from Vice President Biden’s visit to Warsaw. In a televised appearance with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Mr. Biden referred to him as “Mr. President.” He later corrected himself. A search on YouTube for videos related to Biden’s visit placed at the top a TV report from Russia Today, an English-language international TV channel funded by the Russian government.

On Friday, the White House added to its blog Central European language versions of the text of Vice President Biden’s speech in Bucharest, in which he made somewhat doubtful claim that President Obama’s missile defense proposal had nothing to do with Russia. The Polish translation was far from perfect.

Update: All translations of Vice President Biden’s speech were subsequently removed from the White House Blog, possibly because they were not totally accurate. The Polish translation posted here had been downloaded by Opinia.US before it was removed from the White House website.

The translations, however, were still available on the U.S. State Department’s America.gov website.

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Snjezana Pelivan

CTK, the Czech News Agency, carried a news item based on an article published in Croatia by the English-language newspaper Croatian Times, which reports on a complaint filed at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg by Snjezana Pelivan, a Croatian citizen previously employed by RFE/RL. Ms. Pelivan complained to the European court that the Czech courts had failed to safeguard her rights to non-discrimination and a fair trial guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Her employment contract was terminated by RFE/RL in June 2005 without any reason stated orally or in writing, any prior warning or previous disciplinary measures, and without severance pay because she had refused to agree in writing with her dismissal and, also in writing, to give up her right of appeal.

Most RFE/RL journalists, who come from countries without free media, have little choice but to agree to the employment terms presented to them by the management. Without signing a secrecy agreement, they would not receive their severance pay. Resulting economic hardship could leave some of them no choice but to return to their country of origin, where they could face possible persecution for their journalistic activities while employed at RFE/RL.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors allows RFE/RL to use “employment-at-will” contracts for their most vulnerable foreign workers in the Czech Republic. These contracts effectively prevent employees from seeking redress in Czech and American courts against unfair treatment. Some of them described themselves in this context as virtual modern-day indentured servants.

Anna Karapetian

Another former employee who chose not to remain silent and filed a suit in Czech courts against RFE/RL is Anna Karapetian, a journalist from Armenia. “The methods are different but the results are virtually the same,” Anna Karapetian wrote in a letter to media freedom and human rights organizations in January 2009. “In RFE/RL target countries the journalists are harassed, persecuted and forced into silence. At the Prague main office, they are harassed and left without means of livelihood and work prospects by arbitrary separations from the Radio.” Unless the BBG changes its employment policies, her case is also likely to end up at the European Court of Human Rights.

Diskriminace cizinců v Česku?
Дискриминация иностранцев на Радио Свобода в Чехии?

The controversy over the BBG’s employment practices at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is having a negative impact on the US government’s image abroad at a sensitive time in relations between Washington and some of America’s allies in Europe. Commentaries in both Czech and Russian media made references to the discrepancy between the Obama Administration’s verbal commitments and the treatment of US allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, in connection with the president’s decision to withdraw US missile defense system from Central Europe.

Ted Lipien, a former BBG and Voice of America manager who now heads media freedom nonprofit Free Media Online, said that the BBG’s treatment of foreign journalists is a shocking behavior that undermines freedom of expression and damages America’s image abroad. Free Media Online has been contacted by journalists from countries of the former Soviet Union who had been fired by RFE/RL and admitted to being forced to remain silent about management abuses to protect economic well-being of their families.

Such treatment of foreign workers is especially appalling since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been now an ex officio member of the BBG for several months, Lipien said. He added that “the US Congress should not tolerate a public entity, which gets all of its funding from American taxpayers, using secrecy agreements to cover up possible mismanagement and discrimination. Tactics, such as keeping foreign-born journalists in a highly dependent relationship by denying them the protection of American and Czech labor laws, should not be used by a US government-funded radio station to prevent the public from looking into how taxpayer money is being spent.”

Sen. Voinovich said that the decision leaves the impression that the United States is dealing unilaterally with Russia without regard to its NATO allies. “The way this decision was communicated shabbily to Poland and the Czech Republic should also send a shiver down the spines of our brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe and their Baltic neighbors who are concerned with Russia’s aggressive efforts to reassert its influence in what was once the Soviet Union,” Sen. Voinovich said on the Senate floor.

End of Opinia.US report. Opinia.US reports may be republished with attribution.

Press release from Sen. Voinovich’s Senate office.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Garrette Silverman or Stephanie Sonksen

September 24, 2009 (202) 224-8609

SEN. VOINOVICH FLOOR SPEECH ON

OBAMA’S REPEAL OF EASTERN EUROPEAN

MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator George V. Voinovich (R-OH) today spoke on the Senate floor on President Obama’s decision to abandon our missile-defense plan and how it will affect America’s image in Eastern Europe.

To view the speech, please visit Sen. Voinovich’s YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/senvoinovich#play/user/869E6EAA8B06ACFA/15/PlmpDNS1MpU. Please find the full text below.

Floor Statement

U.S. Senator George Voinovich

“America’s Image in Eastern Europe”

September 24, 2009

Madam President, I rise today to discuss America’s relationship with our Eastern European friends as well as the challenges America faces with our relationship with Russia.

Over the last decade in the United States Senate, I have been a champion of NATO and worked diligently to increase membership in the alliance. I have also been active in improving our image in Eastern Europe through expansion of the Visa Waiver Program at the request of our friends and allies in Eastern Europe. My passion for foreign relations stems in large part from my history as a supporter of Ohio’s diverse ethnic communities. As Mayor of Cleveland and Governor of Ohio, I gained a keen understanding of Europe from my close work with constituents with ties to countries that were once subject to life behind the Iron Curtain.

We saw the Berlin Wall fall and the Iron Curtain torn thanks in part to the efforts of Pope John Paul II, President Reagan, and President George H.W. Bush. But even with the end of the Cold War, I was deeply concerned that darker forces in Russia could once again reemerge as a threat to democracy, human rights, and religious freedom not just for the Russian people – but for the newly freed “Captive Nations” of Eastern Europe.

I understood that getting these nations into NATO would make the alliance more vibrant and healthy and give them safe harbor from the possible threat of Russian expansionism. One of my proudest moments in the Senate was being present in March 2002 at the NATO Prague summit where seven countries — Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia — were invited to join NATO. When I was Governor of Ohio and Chair of the National Governor’s Association, I led an effort in 1998 to secure passage of an all-50 state resolution in support of NATO expansion for the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. These new members have brought great vigor to the NATO Alliance and are now some of our strongest allies working alongside our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As such, I was astounded last week to see the Obama Administration appear to turn its back on some of our staunchest NATO allies. Last week’s missile defense announcement was made with little advance notice or consultation and disregarded the great political capital expended by the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic.

This decision leaves the impression that the United States is dealing unilaterally with Russia without regard to our NATO allies. Regardless of the merits of the decision itself, the manner it was revealed to Warsaw and Prague was a major public relations and public diplomacy blunder. The fact that the decision was announced on September 17, 2009—the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland—makes it even worse.

The way this decision was communicated shabbily to Poland and the Czech Republic should also send a shiver down the spines of our brothers and sisters in Eastern Europe and their Baltic neighbors who are concerned with Russia’s aggressive efforts to reassert its influence in what was once the Soviet Union.

In an opinion piece in last Friday’s Washington Post, David J. Kramer of the German Marshall Fund notes that “Whatever the official explanation now for not moving forward, many—including the Kremlin—will read this shift as an effort to placate Moscow… Announcing the decision ahead of [President] Obama’s meetings with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev [this] week [in Pittsburgh] reinforces such thinking.”

Madam President, I had the opportunity this past July to travel to the Baltic States with my friends Senators Durbin, Cardin, and Wicker as part of the U.S. Delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly in Vilnius, Lithuania. As part of that trip, I also visited Riga, Latvia—a stop that marked the highest-ranking U.S. official visit to Latvia in over three years. In all of our bilateral meetings with presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers from former Soviet countries, we were told that it was comforting for them to know that their membership in NATO serves as a hedge against a potentially expansionist Russia.

We should be worried about the uncertainties surrounding a Russia that is reverting back to a KGB-ruled country seeking to weaponize its oil and natural gas resources as a means to expand its influence on Europe and the West. Russia has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas and has the eighth-largest oil reserves. Moscow turned off the tap to Ukraine this past winter. They could do it again. We should also be concerned about Moscow using its control of oil and natural gas to pit members of NATO against each other.

Madam President, there is much talk about resetting the U.S. bilateral relationship with Russia. Moscow seeks to regain its global stature and be respected as a peer in the international community. There is nothing inherently wrong with this.

I believe there are key areas where the United States and Russia share common cause and concern: Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and will be essential to effective multilateral pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear program; Russia continues to have leverage on the North Korean regime and has stated that a nuclear-free Korean peninsula is in the interest of both our countries; we are partners on the International Space Station; and, until the Georgia situation flared in August of last year, our government and U.S. industry were working hard on a nuclear cooperation agreement with Russia.

With the world economy as it is today, the worst thing we could do is break off communication and revert back to our Cold War positions. This week’s G-20 conference in Pittsburgh is an opportunity to further engage Russia and determine where we have a symbiotic relationship and what we can accomplish together for the good of the international community. Nevertheless, such a reset should not come at the expense of our Eastern European friends.

Madam President, time will tell whether last week’s decision will have any influence on Russian cooperation on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) or our efforts to prevent a nuclear-armed Iranian regime.

In the meantime, we have our work cut out as we seek to rebuild confidence and trust with our friends in Eastern Europe. After last week’s events, I suspect that their confidence in the reliability of the United States as a partner and ally has been shaken.

Madam President, I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

– END –

Ms. Garrette M.K. Silverman
Communications Director
Senator George V. Voinovich
Phone: (202)224-7784
Fax: (202) 228-0501
Garrette_Silverman@voinovich.senate.gov
Sign up for Sen. Voinovich’s newsletter HERE.

“It wasn’t that the shield was that important, but it’s about the way, the way of treating us.”

–Lech Wałęsa, the former Polish president and Solidarity leader, regarding the US decision to drop the missile defense shield in Poland, John Brown’s Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, Version 2.0

Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam

Wired

Poland has not one but two Pearl Harbor Days in September: the anniversary of the start of World War II with the Nazi German attack on Poland on September 1, 1939 and the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on September 17, 1939 under the terms of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Someone at the State Department should have explained the significance of these two dates for Poland to Hawaiian-born US President. There was no good reason for snubbing Poland by sending a minor US official to the anniversary observances in Gdansk on September 1 to stand alongside of heads of state and Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and President Obama did not have to announce his missile shield decision on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Ted Lipien

Update

2009 marks 90 years of diplomatic relations between Poland and the United States. This is the last week of US Ambassador Victor H. Ashe’s tenure in Poland. A holdover President George W. Bush’s appointee, he is scheduled to depart Warsaw permanently on September 26. President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland is Lee A. Feinstein who is on leave from the Brookings Institution, where he has been a Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies. He was National Security Director to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign. Ambassador Victor Ashe congratulated Mr. Feinstein: “President Obama made an excellent choice in announcing his intent to nominate Lee Feinstein as the next U.S. Ambassador to Poland. I know the Embassy and Polish-American relations will be in good hands under his leadership.” If confirmed, Mr. Feinstein will be the 25th U.S. Ambassador to Poland.

American Diplomacy Failed Obama in Poland

While American and international media blames President Obama for choosing to announce his decision on the removal of the missile defense system from Poland and Czech Republic on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, surprisingly so far no one has called it a failure of American diplomacy. What makes this failure even more disturbing is that neither the State Department nor the White House has drawn any lessons from an earlier public diplomacy disaster when they gave grave offence by sending to Poland a low-level delegation to participate in the 70th anniversary observances on September 1 of the start of World War II, a date also of great historical significance to the Polish people.

Both missteps were completely avoidable. Why add insult to injury? Why offend even more a loyal US ally in the war on terror who has contributed troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

There may be some who think that the Obama White House deliberately snubbed and punished Poland because Warsaw was one of the strongest supporters among NATO members of President Bush’s foreign policy. I don’t think this was the case. President Obama and his closest advisors may be naive and historically challenged, but they would not sacrifice American national interests in such a way. The additional humiliation of Poland was not deliberate. It was unplanned, and much of it was certainly unnecessary and avoidable.

If only one US diplomat, one foreign service officer at the State Department, did his or her job well, some of the international headlines making fun of President Obama’s lack of appreciation of history would not have been written. Where was the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, one of President Obama’s appointees? (Photo) Where was the US Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe?

As President Bush’s holdover appointee who is leaving his post in Warsaw this week, Ambassador Ashe would not have much influence with the Obama White House anyway. But where was President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein? The Brookings Institution Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and National Security Director to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign should have been already advising the Obama Administration on a host of issues, including the sensitive area of history and trust in US-Polish relations. His statement made to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 15, just two days before President Obama’s ill-timed announcement, shows a certain appreciation of Poland’s history.

“Poland has endured great hardship and tragedy in its history. It has been occupied and dismembered by foreign powers time and again. It experienced a brief period of independence after World War I, but then fell prey to Nazi invasion and occupation, during which six million Polish citizens lost their lives, including three million Jews, most of Poland’s Jewish population. Then, following the war, the Soviet regime deprived Poles of their political liberty and imposed an economic system that kept the country in poverty and subjugation.”

President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein, September 15, 2009

Ambassador-Designate Feinstein did not specifically mention the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, but he undoubtedly knew about it, and knew about President Obama’s pending missile shield announcement. He probably also knows that the Poles still remember how the US Administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had betrayed Poland to Russia at the end of World War II. I specifically refer to FDR and his administration, and not the American people who did not want to see Poland being sold to Stalin.

Lee Feinstein should have called the White House to offer friendly advice on Polish history and perhaps quote from another part of his earlier statement: “As Secretary Clinton has said, Poland is ‘one of our closest allies.’ Poland was one of just three countries that entered Iraq with U.S. forces in 2003. It contributes forces for NATO’s KFOR mission in Kosovo. Polish forces have served in Afghanistan since the onset of the NATO mission in 2004.” Ambassador-Designate Feinstein summed up Poland’s special relationship with the US in this way: “In short, intrepid Polish forces stand with us in dangerous places with dangerous missions, and Poland has increased its contributions, which are prodigious.”

During World War II, Polish soldiers fought alongside of British and American soldiers against Nazi Germany. Those who understand how the Polish people feel about history and about America are reminded of Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane who served in Poland from 1945 until 1947 during the Truman Administration, resigned, and wrote a book “I Saw Poland Betrayed.” He described what he saw as the betrayal of Poland by the Western Allies at the end of World War II, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt playing a major part in selling out of Poland to Stalin at the Yalta Conference. Fortunately, subsequent administrations and the American people rejected Roosevelt’s naive assessment of Stalin and supported America’s participation in the Cold War until the Soviet Union collapsed and Poland along with other Central European nations became a member of NATO. The people of Poland can take some comfort in knowing that American democracy eventually corrects even some of the gravest mistakes made by US presidents.

Even if President Obama’s ideological preferences pushed him to embrace Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev rather than listen to Lech Walesa and Waclav Havel, who had sent him a letter warning him about Russia’s dangerous slide into authoritarianism and imperial expansion, there was still room for observing basic diplomatic protocol and good manners. At a lower level of US diplomatic corps, where was the PAO (Public Affairs Officer) at the US Embassy in Warsaw and dozens of other foreign service officers, each costing US taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars? Where was the Polish Desk officer at the State Department? Where were all the public diplomacy experts President Obama had promised to bring on board to correct the mistakes of the Bush Administration, whom he accused of dealing harshly with the rest of the world and of not listening to what others were saying?

Well, the Obama Administration is now talking softly to Moscow, Iran, and Cuba. But what about Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and other nations in Central and Eastern Europe which already are or want to be America’s allies? What about the future of independent and democratic Ukraine? Is Ukraine going to become like Russia? Where was in all of this President Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his chief diplomatic advisor? We have also not heard much from Vice President Biden.

Ultimately, the US President is responsible for any foreign policy and public diplomacy disasters, but American diplomats should have managed the process and tried to soften the blow to Poland and other nations in the region. Perhaps they did warn the White House, and their warnings were ignored. This would still qualify as a failure of American diplomacy — the inability of State Department officials to affect something as simple as the timing of a critical announcement and selecting who should represent the United States at an important event abroad.

If warnings were issued to the White House and were disregarded, I hope we will soon find out. Comments from those who may know are welcome. Whatever happened, this will hurt President Obama politically among Polish-American voters and other Americans with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. With headlines like these, this diplomatic fiasco will likely have a negative political impact for the President and his party across the whole spectrum of the American electorate. But while President Obama may eventually pay a political price for the mistakes that were both his and the State Department’s, the damage to America’s reputation and credibility among our true allies abroad will be long-lasting and will not be easily undone.

This op-ed was written by Ted Lipien, president of Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a 501(c)3 media nonprofit promoting media freedom worldwide. Republishing is allowed.

Wired Headline: Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam

P.S. (TedLipien.com)

By the way, we are taking away the thing that could prevent another one. Hope you don’t mind. Too much.

The Washington Times Headline: Obama not smooth on Gdansk: German attack that started World War II marked without him

Polish Radio Headline: US snubs Poland over WW II ceremony?

DigitalJournal Headline: Opinion: Obama chose wrong day to abandon missile defence shield in Europe

Polish News Headline: OBAMA ABANDONS MISSILE DEFENSE FOR POLAND: Makes Controversial Move on the 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland

examiner.com San Francisco Headline: Obama betrays Poland and every American EXCELLENT VIDEOS!

Drudge Report Headline: September 17: Obama kills missile defense for Poland on 70th anniversary of Soviet invasion…
And countless blogs:

Mother. Of. ALL. Snubs. Obama and the Polish Joke

President Obama acknowledges the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland… …by cancelling the missile defense in Eastern Europe

Obama Celebrates 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland…

Obama to Allies: Drop Dead

Obama’s second Polish joke: the Obama Doctrine

Wikipedia

Soviet invasion of Poland

Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam
Wired

While American and international media blames President Obama for choosing to announce his decision on the removal of the missile defense system from Poland and Czech Republic on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, surprisingly so far no one has called it a failure of American diplomacy. What makes this failure even more disturbing is that neither the State Department nor the White House has drawn any lessons from an earlier public diplomacy disaster when they gave grave offence by sending to Poland a low-level delegation to participate in the 70th anniversary observances on September 1 of the start of World War II, a date also of great historical significance to the Polish people.

Both missteps were completely avoidable. Why add insult to injury? Why offend even more a loyal US ally in the war on terror who has contributed troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

There may be some who think that the Obama White House deliberately snubbed and punished Poland because Warsaw was one of the strongest supporters among NATO members of President Bush’s foreign policy. I don’t think this was the case. President Obama and his closest advisors may be naive and historically challenged, but they would not sacrifice American national interests in such a way. The additional humiliation of Poland was not deliberate. It was unplanned, and much of it was certainly unnecessary and avoidable.

If only one US diplomat, one foreign service officer at the State Department, did his or her job well, some of the international headlines making fun of President Obama’s lack of appreciation of history would not have been written. Where was the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale, one of President Obama’s appointees? (Photo) Where was the US Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe?

As President Bush’s holdover appointee who is leaving his post in Warsaw this week, Ambassador Ashe would not have much influence with the Obama White House anyway. But where was President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein? The Brookings Institution Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and National Security Director to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her presidential campaign should have been already advising the Obama Administration on a host of issues, including the sensitive area of history and trust in US-Polish relations. His statement made to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 15, just two days before President Obama’s ill-timed announcement, shows a certain appreciation of Poland’s history.

“Poland has endured great hardship and tragedy in its history. It has been occupied and dismembered by foreign powers time and again. It experienced a brief period of independence after World War I, but then fell prey to Nazi invasion and occupation, during which six million Polish citizens lost their lives, including three million Jews, most of Poland’s Jewish population. Then, following the war, the Soviet regime deprived Poles of their political liberty and imposed an economic system that kept the country in poverty and subjugation.”

President Obama’s Ambassador-Designate to Poland Lee A. Feinstein, September 15, 2009

Ambassador-Designate Feinstein did not specifically mention the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, but he undoubtedly knew about it, and knew about President Obama’s pending missile shield announcement. He probably also knows that the Poles still remember how the US Administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had betrayed Poland to Russia at the end of World War II. I specifically refer to FDR and his administration, and not the American people who did not want to see Poland being sold to Stalin.

Lee Feinstein should have called the White House to offer friendly advice on Polish history and perhaps quote from another part of his earlier statement: “As Secretary Clinton has said, Poland is ‘one of our closest allies.’ Poland was one of just three countries that entered Iraq with U.S. forces in 2003. It contributes forces for NATO’s KFOR mission in Kosovo. Polish forces have served in Afghanistan since the onset of the NATO mission in 2004.” Ambassador-Designate Feinstein summed up Poland’s special relationship with the US in this way: “In short, intrepid Polish forces stand with us in dangerous places with dangerous missions, and Poland has increased its contributions, which are prodigious.”

During World War II, Polish soldiers fought alongside of British and American soldiers against Nazi Germany. Those who understand how the Polish people feel about history and about America are reminded of Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane who served in Poland from 1945 until 1947 during the Truman Administration, resigned, and wrote a book “I Saw Poland Betrayed.” He described what he saw as the betrayal of Poland by the Western Allies at the end of World War II, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt playing a major part in selling out of Poland to Stalin at the Yalta Conference. Fortunately, subsequent administrations and the American people rejected Roosevelt’s naive assessment of Stalin and supported America’s participation in the Cold War until the Soviet Union collapsed and Poland along with other Central European nations became a member of NATO. The people of Poland can take some comfort in knowing that American democracy eventually corrects even some of the gravest mistakes made by US presidents.

Even if President Obama’s ideological preferences pushed him to embrace Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev rather than listen to Lech Walesa and Waclav Havel, who had sent him a letter warning him about Russia’s dangerous slide into authoritarianism and imperial expansion, there was still room for observing basic diplomatic protocol and good manners. At a lower level of US diplomatic corps, where was the PAO (Public Affairs Officer) at the US Embassy in Warsaw and dozens of other foreign service officers, each costing US taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars? Where was the Polish Desk officer at the State Department? Where were all the public diplomacy experts President Obama had promised to bring on board to correct the mistakes of the Bush Administration, whom he accused of dealing harshly with the rest of the world and of not listening to what others were saying?

Well, the Obama Administration is now talking softly to Moscow, Iran, and Cuba. But what about Poland, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and other nations in Central and Eastern Europe which already are or want to be America’s allies? What about the future of independent and democratic Ukraine? Is Ukraine going to become like Russia? Where was in all of this President Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his chief diplomatic advisor? We have also not heard much from Vice President Biden.

Ultimately, the US President is responsible for any foreign policy and public diplomacy disasters, but American diplomats should have managed the process and tried to soften the blow to Poland and other nations in the region. Perhaps they did warn the White House, and their warnings were ignored. This would still qualify as a failure of American diplomacy — the inability of State Department officials to affect something as simple as the timing of a critical announcement and selecting who should represent the United States at an important event abroad.

If warnings were issued to the White House and were disregarded, I hope we will soon find out. Comments from those who may know are welcome. Whatever happened, this will hurt President Obama politically among Polish-American voters and other Americans with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. With headlines like these, this diplomatic fiasco will likely have a negative political impact for the President and his party across the whole spectrum of the American electorate. But while President Obama may eventually pay a political price for the mistakes that were both his and the State Department’s, the damage to America’s reputation and credibility among our true allies abroad will be long-lasting and will not be easily undone.

This op-ed was written by Ted Lipien, president of Free Media Online (FreeMediaOnline.org), a 501(c)3 media nonprofit promoting media freedom worldwide. Republishing is allowed.

Wired Headline: Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam

P.S. (TedLipien.com)

By the way, we are taking away the thing that could prevent another one. Hope you don’t mind. Too much.

The Washington Times Headline: Obama not smooth on Gdansk: German attack that started World War II marked without him

Polish Radio Headline: US snubs Poland over WW II ceremony?

DigitalJournal Headline: Opinion: Obama chose wrong day to abandon missile defence shield in Europe

Polish News Headline: OBAMA ABANDONS MISSILE DEFENSE FOR POLAND: Makes Controversial Move on the 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland

examiner.com San Francisco Headline: Obama betrays Poland and every American EXCELLENT VIDEOS!

Drudge Report Headline: September 17: Obama kills missile defense for Poland on 70th anniversary of Soviet invasion…
And countless blogs:

Mother. Of. ALL. Snubs. Obama and the Polish Joke

President Obama acknowledges the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland… …by cancelling the missile defense in Eastern Europe

Obama Celebrates 70th Anniversary of Soviet Invasion of Poland…

Obama to Allies: Drop Dead

Obama’s second Polish joke: the Obama Doctrine

Wikipedia

Soviet invasion of Poland

FreeMediaOnline.org,  Free Media Online Blog,  GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 26, 2009, San Francisco – Ronald Reagan’s strong response to the imposition of martial law  against the independent Solidarity trade union in Poland in 1981 was distinctly different from President Barack Obama’s nuanced comments about the crackdown on demonstrators in Iran in the aftermath of the disputed Iranian presidential elections. While President Obama may have wanted to show his appreciation of the subtleties of Iranian politics, his public statements projected around the world a sense of confusion and weakness instead of showing firm American support for human rights and democracy.   

Intellectually, President Obama is right that the current situation in Iran is not the same as the communist crackdown on Solidarity in Poland in the 1980′s and may require a different policy response from the way President Reagan dealt with communist regimes. But the right course of improving communications with the Muslim world, set by President Obama’s speech in Cairo, was undermined by his initial refusal to speak out strongly against violations of human rights in Iran. He may have lost some of the earlier respect among supporters of democracy in the Middle East and weakened his position vis-a-vis America’s most determined enemies.

President Obama is right that President George W. Bush had made monumental mistakes by his unsophisticated and interventionist approach to the Muslim world while appeasing other authoritarian rulers, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Public diplomacy mistakes by the Bush Administration are too numerous to list, but U.S. international broadcasting initiatives during the last eight years serve as a good example. The Bush-appointed Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) eliminated all Voice of America (VOA) highly-respected Arabic news programs and created Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV, which are viewed in the Middle East and by independent experts in the U.S. as propaganda stations that lack journalistic standards, credibility and audience. Alhurra had broadcast unchallenged statements by Holocaust deniers at a conference in Tehran organized by no other than President Ahmadinejad. The BBG  had also eliminated Voice of America Russian radio programs just 12 days before the Russian army invaded the disputed parts of the Republic of Georgia. Democrats serving as members of the bipartisan BBG, including former BBG member Edward E. Kaufman, who has replaced Vice President Joe Biden as a U.S. Senator from Delaware, had been instrumental in helping the Bush Administration to make and implement many of the misguided decisions that have replaced objective journalism by the Voice of America with crude propaganda that damages America’s reputation and interests abroad.

President Obama is right in offering a new style of public diplomacy in the Middle East and throughout the world. He did not go to Alhurra to give his first interview targeted for the Middle East but chose an Arab TV network instead. Unfortunately, he still does not have around him enough good advisors who could help shape all of his public statements on human rights and freedom of expression issues, especially in times of crisis, so that he and his Administration do not appear at times as being intimidated by dictators of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s kind or appear naive and impulsive like President Bush.

As someone who was in charge of Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity period, I agree that the two situations — the imposition of the martial law in Poland in December 1981 and the crackdown on demonstrations in Iran in June 2009 – are not identical. They both required, however, from the President of the United States a quick and decisive public response that would not be misinterpreted by foreign leaders and public opinion. Unfortunately, President Obama did not pass this latest test with flying colors.

Undoubtedly, he is a highly intelligent leader and hopefully capable of making right assessments and decisions. His reading of the situation in Iran may be in some ways correct, but his initial public response to this latest crisis was insufficient and quite wrong. He may have been told that workers and intellectuals in Iran are not as united against the religious regime as the Poles were against the communists in the 1980s. America was never seen by the vast majority of the Polish people as a threatening imperial power; Russia was. On the contrary,  most Poles saw America as an only major ally that could help them free themselves from communism and Soviet domination. And unlike the religious authorities in Iran, the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II were on the side of striking workers, protesting intellectuals and students.

But while the situation in Iran in 2009 is in some ways different from Solidarity’s struggles in Poland in the 1980s, the need for moral support for pro-democracy Iranian reformers is now just as urgent as support for Lech Walesa was for the Reagan White House.  To achieve their goals,  the reform-minded, largely urban Iranians who are behind the street protests could learn from Solidarity’s success in Poland by sticking to their non-violent posture. They could also follow the example of Solidarity’s intellectual advisers, who had shaped the alliance with the Polish industrial workers, by making a similar effort in reaching out to the poor, highly religious, and anti-Western rural voters who tend to support President Ahmadinejad and the clerical regime.

Even in Poland, where conditions were more favorable to creating a democratic society, the solidarity-building process between intellectuals and workers was long and arduous. It took several decades before the Polish society finally united to a sufficient degree against the communist rule. Strong but not overly aggressive statements from President Reagan, and radio broadcasts by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, had helped the Poles in their struggle for freedom.

President Obama’s speech in Cairo, offering a new approach in dealing with the Muslim world, was a great public diplomacy success and was  seen in the region as a new beginning. Unfortunately, public diplomacy experts at the White House and the State Department were not able to show a similar sophistication when a sudden crisis developed in Iran. President Obama’s overwhelming public concern how his comments in support for the protesting Iranians might be perceived by anti-Western, anti-democratic, and pro-clerical forces was clearly not the right response and opened him to criticism from his Republican opponents.

The White House could have taken a lesson or two from President Reagan on how to articulate a strong public diplomacy message that strikes the right balance between legitimate policy concerns and the impact of presidential statements on public opinion.  It’s good for the president of the United States to be aware of all the subtleties of foreign policy, but in some situations speaking publicly about them sends a wrong message to both supporters and enemies of democracy. Reagan knew how to use public comments to project a strong and confident image abroad while still being able to practice diplomacy when it served America’s interests and the cause of freedom.

In responding to the crackdown on Solidarity In 1981, President Reagan expressed America’s unqualified support for freedom without any concern that he would be criticized in Moscow and Warsaw for interfering in Poland’s domestic politics or trying to undermine the Polish communist regime’s close links with the Soviet Union. He was still able to engage later in successful negotiations with Soviet and Polish communist leaders when they were already critically weakened by America’s resolve to support freedom. Reagan was decisive but not intellectually inflexible like President George W. Bush. His was the right approach, and history has proved him right.

President Reagan’s Address to the Nation About Christmas and the Situation in Poland, December 23, 1981

I urge the Polish Government and its allies to consider the consequences of their actions. How can they possibly justify using naked force to crush a people who ask for nothing more than the right to lead their own lives in freedom and dignity? Brute force may intimidate, but it cannot form the basis of an enduring society, and the ailing Polish economy cannot be rebuilt with terror tactics.

Poland needs cooperation between its government and its people, not military oppression. If the Polish Government will honor the commitments it has made to human rights in documents like the Gdansk agreement, we in America will gladly do our share to help the shattered Polish economy, just as we helped the countries of Europe after both World Wars.

President Obama’s reaction to street demonstrations in Iran was markedly different in an interview with Harry Smith of CBS News, June 19, 2009.

CBS News Harry Smith: Let’s move on to the news of the day.  The Ayatollah Khamenei gave his speech today, gave his sermon.  He said that the election in Iran was, in fact, legitimate.  He said, “The street demonstrations are unacceptable.”  Do you have a message for those people in the street?

President Obama:  I absolutely do.  First of all, let’s understand that this notion that somehow these hundreds of thousands of people who are pouring into the streets in Iran are somehow responding to the West or the United States, that’s an old distraction that I think has been trotted out periodically.  And that’s just not going to fly.

CBS News Harry Smith: People in this country say you haven’t said enough, that you haven’t been forceful enough in your support for those people in the street, and which you say? 

President Obama: To which I say the last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do. That’s what we’ve already seen. We shouldn’t be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the Iranian people are seeking to let their voices be heard.

Now, what we can do is bear witness and say to the world that the, you know, incredible demonstrations that we’ve seen is a testimony to, I think what Dr. King called the the arc of the moral universe. It’s long but it bends towards justice.

President Obama is right that the United States should not be seen as directly interfering in domestic Iranian politics, as this may hurt pro-democratic forces. But there is a big difference between actual interference and strong public statements in support of human rights abroad, especially in a crisis situation. Regardless of what President Obama says or does not say, Ahmadinejad’s supporters will still claim — as they have – that the United States is creating unrest in Iran. But if President Obama had taken a more Reagan-like approach in his public statements, while still maintaining diplomatic flexibility – supporters of human rights around the world would not be discouraged and enemies of freedom would not see him and the United States as confused by the events in Iran and weak against dictators. If the president’s public diplomacy advisers knew what they were doing, this would not have become an issue for the new administration. It is possible to have a sophisticated public diplomacy strategy in the Middle East without appearing too cautious in support of democracy and freedom of expression.

About Ted Lipien

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980′s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news programs to Ukraine and Russia. He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church” (O-Books – June 2008). In his book he describes the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by Western journalists.

Wojtyla's Women by Ted Lipien

About FreeMediaOnline.org

FreeMediaOnline.org is a San Francisco-based nonprofit which supports media freedom worldwide. 

About GovoritAmerika.us

In December 2008, FreeMediaOnline.org launched a Russian-language web site — GovoritAmerika.us ГоворитАмерика.us  – which includes summaries of some of the more serious news and commentaries from multiple U.S. government and nongovernment sources. According to Ted Lipien, the web site is designed to compensate for the loss of information from the United States for Russian-speaking audiences due to program and budget cuts implemented by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The web site, which includes links to VOA Russian Service news reports, is also designed to counter the BBG marketing strategy that has forced broadcasting entities to focus on entertainment programming and to avoid hard-hitting political reporting that might prevent local rebroadcasting or offend local officials. GovoritAmerika.us web site was developed without any public funding and is managed by volunteers. It is also hosted on LiveJournal.com.

BBG officials initially had told the VOA Russian Service that their requests to resume radio broadcasts were a “non-starter” even after Russia invaded Georgia. Only after weeks of protests, including reporting by FreeMediaOnline.org, the BBG finally allowed VOA to produce a short audio program for the Internet, updated only Monday through Friday. This program is rather difficult to find on the VOA website. We made it available for easier access and listening on the GovoritAmerika.us website managed by FreeMediaOnline.org.

FreeMediaOnline.org,  Free Media Online Blog,  GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 26, 2009, San Francisco – Ronald Reagan’s strong response to the imposition of martial law  against the independent Solidarity trade union in Poland in 1981 was distinctly different from President Barack Obama’s nuanced comments about the crackdown on demonstrators in Iran in the aftermath of the disputed Iranian presidential elections. While President Obama may have wanted to show his appreciation of the subtleties of Iranian politics, his public statements projected around the world a sense of confusion and weakness instead of showing firm American support for human rights and democracy.   

Intellectually, President Obama is right that the current situation in Iran is not the same as the communist crackdown on Solidarity in Poland in the 1980′s and may require a different policy response from the way President Reagan dealt with communist regimes. But the right course of improving communications with the Muslim world, set by President Obama’s speech in Cairo, was undermined by his initial refusal to speak out strongly against violations of human rights in Iran. He may have lost some of the earlier respect among supporters of democracy in the Middle East and weakened his position vis-a-vis America’s most determined enemies.

President Obama is right that President George W. Bush had made monumental mistakes by his unsophisticated and interventionist approach to the Muslim world while appeasing other authoritarian rulers, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Public diplomacy mistakes by the Bush Administration are too numerous to list, but U.S. international broadcasting initiatives during the last eight years serve as a good example. The Bush-appointed Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) eliminated all Voice of America (VOA) highly-respected Arabic news programs and created Radio Sawa and Alhurra TV, which are viewed in the Middle East and by independent experts in the U.S. as propaganda stations that lack journalistic standards, credibility and audience. Alhurra had broadcast unchallenged statements by Holocaust deniers at a conference in Tehran organized by no other than President Ahmadinejad. The BBG  had also eliminated Voice of America Russian radio programs just 12 days before the Russian army invaded the disputed parts of the Republic of Georgia. Democrats serving as members of the bipartisan BBG, including former BBG member Edward E. Kaufman, who has replaced Vice President Joe Biden as a U.S. Senator from Delaware, had been instrumental in helping the Bush Administration to make and implement many of the misguided decisions that have replaced objective journalism by the Voice of America with crude propaganda that damages America’s reputation and interests abroad.

President Obama is right in offering a new style of public diplomacy in the Middle East and throughout the world. He did not go to Alhurra to give his first interview targeted for the Middle East but chose an Arab TV network instead. Unfortunately, he still does not have around him enough good advisors who could help shape all of his public statements on human rights and freedom of expression issues, especially in times of crisis, so that he and his Administration do not appear at times as being intimidated by dictators of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s kind or appear naive and impulsive like President Bush.

As someone who was in charge of Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts to Poland during the Solidarity period, I agree that the two situations — the imposition of the martial law in Poland in December 1981 and the crackdown on demonstrations in Iran in June 2009 – are not identical. They both required, however, from the President of the United States a quick and decisive public response that would not be misinterpreted by foreign leaders and public opinion. Unfortunately, President Obama did not pass this latest test with flying colors.

Undoubtedly, he is a highly intelligent leader and hopefully capable of making right assessments and decisions. His reading of the situation in Iran may be in some ways correct, but his initial public response to this latest crisis was insufficient and quite wrong. He may have been told that workers and intellectuals in Iran are not as united against the religious regime as the Poles were against the communists in the 1980s. America was never seen by the vast majority of the Polish people as a threatening imperial power; Russia was. On the contrary,  most Poles saw America as an only major ally that could help them free themselves from communism and Soviet domination. And unlike the religious authorities in Iran, the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II were on the side of striking workers, protesting intellectuals and students.

But while the situation in Iran in 2009 is in some ways different from Solidarity’s struggles in Poland in the 1980s, the need for moral support for pro-democracy Iranian reformers is now just as urgent as support for Lech Walesa was for the Reagan White House.  To achieve their goals,  the reform-minded, largely urban Iranians who are behind the street protests could learn from Solidarity’s success in Poland by sticking to their non-violent posture. They could also follow the example of Solidarity’s intellectual advisers, who had shaped the alliance with the Polish industrial workers, by making a similar effort in reaching out to the poor, highly religious, and anti-Western rural voters who tend to support President Ahmadinejad and the clerical regime.

Even in Poland, where conditions were more favorable to creating a democratic society, the solidarity-building process between intellectuals and workers was long and arduous. It took several decades before the Polish society finally united to a sufficient degree against the communist rule. Strong but not overly aggressive statements from President Reagan, and radio broadcasts by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, had helped the Poles in their struggle for freedom.

President Obama’s speech in Cairo, offering a new approach in dealing with the Muslim world, was a great public diplomacy success and was  seen in the region as a new beginning. Unfortunately, public diplomacy experts at the White House and the State Department were not able to show a similar sophistication when a sudden crisis developed in Iran. President Obama’s overwhelming public concern how his comments in support for the protesting Iranians might be perceived by anti-Western, anti-democratic, and pro-clerical forces was clearly not the right response and opened him to criticism from his Republican opponents.

The White House could have taken a lesson or two from President Reagan on how to articulate a strong public diplomacy message that strikes the right balance between legitimate policy concerns and the impact of presidential statements on public opinion.  It’s good for the president of the United States to be aware of all the subtleties of foreign policy, but in some situations speaking publicly about them sends a wrong message to both supporters and enemies of democracy. Reagan knew how to use public comments to project a strong and confident image abroad while still being able to practice diplomacy when it served America’s interests and the cause of freedom.

In responding to the crackdown on Solidarity In 1981, President Reagan expressed America’s unqualified support for freedom without any concern that he would be criticized in Moscow and Warsaw for interfering in Poland’s domestic politics or trying to undermine the Polish communist regime’s close links with the Soviet Union. He was still able to engage later in successful negotiations with Soviet and Polish communist leaders when they were already critically weakened by America’s resolve to support freedom. Reagan was decisive but not intellectually inflexible like President George W. Bush. His was the right approach, and history has proved him right.

President Reagan’s Address to the Nation About Christmas and the Situation in Poland, December 23, 1981

I urge the Polish Government and its allies to consider the consequences of their actions. How can they possibly justify using naked force to crush a people who ask for nothing more than the right to lead their own lives in freedom and dignity? Brute force may intimidate, but it cannot form the basis of an enduring society, and the ailing Polish economy cannot be rebuilt with terror tactics.

Poland needs cooperation between its government and its people, not military oppression. If the Polish Government will honor the commitments it has made to human rights in documents like the Gdansk agreement, we in America will gladly do our share to help the shattered Polish economy, just as we helped the countries of Europe after both World Wars.

President Obama’s reaction to street demonstrations in Iran was markedly different in an interview with Harry Smith of CBS News, June 19, 2009.

CBS News Harry Smith: Let’s move on to the news of the day.  The Ayatollah Khamenei gave his speech today, gave his sermon.  He said that the election in Iran was, in fact, legitimate.  He said, “The street demonstrations are unacceptable.”  Do you have a message for those people in the street?

President Obama:  I absolutely do.  First of all, let’s understand that this notion that somehow these hundreds of thousands of people who are pouring into the streets in Iran are somehow responding to the West or the United States, that’s an old distraction that I think has been trotted out periodically.  And that’s just not going to fly.

CBS News Harry Smith: People in this country say you haven’t said enough, that you haven’t been forceful enough in your support for those people in the street, and which you say? 

President Obama: To which I say the last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States. That’s what they do. That’s what we’ve already seen. We shouldn’t be playing into that. There should be no distractions from the fact that the Iranian people are seeking to let their voices be heard.

Now, what we can do is bear witness and say to the world that the, you know, incredible demonstrations that we’ve seen is a testimony to, I think what Dr. King called the the arc of the moral universe. It’s long but it bends towards justice.

President Obama is right that the United States should not be seen as directly interfering in domestic Iranian politics, as this may hurt pro-democratic forces. But there is a big difference between actual interference and strong public statements in support of human rights abroad, especially in a crisis situation. Regardless of what President Obama says or does not say, Ahmadinejad’s supporters will still claim — as they have – that the United States is creating unrest in Iran. But if President Obama had taken a more Reagan-like approach in his public statements, while still maintaining diplomatic flexibility – supporters of human rights around the world would not be discouraged and enemies of freedom would not see him and the United States as confused by the events in Iran and weak against dictators. If the president’s public diplomacy advisers knew what they were doing, this would not have become an issue for the new administration. It is possible to have a sophisticated public diplomacy strategy in the Middle East without appearing too cautious in support of democracy and freedom of expression.

About Ted Lipien

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980′s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news programs to Ukraine and Russia. He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church” (O-Books – June 2008). In his book he describes the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by Western journalists.

Wojtyla's Women by Ted Lipien

About FreeMediaOnline.org

FreeMediaOnline.org is a San Francisco-based nonprofit which supports media freedom worldwide. 

About GovoritAmerika.us

In December 2008, FreeMediaOnline.org launched a Russian-language web site — GovoritAmerika.us ГоворитАмерика.us  – which includes summaries of some of the more serious news and commentaries from multiple U.S. government and nongovernment sources. According to Ted Lipien, the web site is designed to compensate for the loss of information from the United States for Russian-speaking audiences due to program and budget cuts implemented by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The web site, which includes links to VOA Russian Service news reports, is also designed to counter the BBG marketing strategy that has forced broadcasting entities to focus on entertainment programming and to avoid hard-hitting political reporting that might prevent local rebroadcasting or offend local officials. GovoritAmerika.us web site was developed without any public funding and is managed by volunteers. It is also hosted on LiveJournal.com.

BBG officials initially had told the VOA Russian Service that their requests to resume radio broadcasts were a “non-starter” even after Russia invaded Georgia. Only after weeks of protests, including reporting by FreeMediaOnline.org, the BBG finally allowed VOA to produce a short audio program for the Internet, updated only Monday through Friday. This program is rather difficult to find on the VOA website. We made it available for easier access and listening on the GovoritAmerika.us website managed by FreeMediaOnline.org.

FreeMediaOnline.org,  Free Media Online Blog,  GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, June 04, 2009, San Francisco – President Obama’s recent announcement of a new Global Engagement Directorate that will combine ”diplomacy, communications, international development and assistance” was short on specifics how this new structure might change the focus of U.S. public diplomacy and broadcasting initiatives. That’s hardly surprising, considering that the White House has to deal with many other seemingly more pressing problems. But when the Administration finally starts making hard decisions on global engagement, a greater appreciation of history and foreign cultures could help return some sanity and accountability to these programs. The President and the Senate also have to make better choices in selecting key officials responsible for international communications and avoid the temptation to use propaganda rather than dialogue and journalism in communicating with the Muslim world.  Such officials should be appointed and confirmed based on their qualifications as foreign policy analysts and international media experts rather than selected because of political loyalty or the size of their political contributions. Finally, there is no reason why American taxpayers should continue to fund many of the programs created during the Bush Administration that at best don’t work and often damage America’s image abroad. 

Propaganda Is Out, Journalism and Culture Is In – We Hope

If the White House is serious about avoiding past mistakes,  what’s clearly needed in communicating with the rest of the world is a more sophisticated approach that draws on what is best in American diplomacy, culture and objective journalism. Much will depend on what kind of people are put in charge of representing America to the world. They should appreciate what’s best in American culture.  The Administration should look for people who would be in the same league as Edward R. Murrow, who was President Kennedy’s choice to head the now defunct United States Information Agency (USIA), or John Chancellor, President Johnson’s choice to head the Voice of America (VOA) in the days when the White House appreciated the experience of professional journalists. 

The last thing America needs is leaving public diplomacy in the hands of obscure political loyalists who make private business deals on taxpayer-paid trips abroad and help their  business associates get hired as government consultants at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which manages, or more accurately mismanages, U.S. international broadcasts. It’s hard to imagine that the late Armand Hammer, a U.S. business tycoon who made profitable trade deals with Lenin and Stalin, would have been put in charge of U.S. broadcasting during the Cold War, or that the late Edward E. Murrow would be discussing  private business deals with President Putin’s associates on a trip to Moscow if he were now in charge of these broadcasts. But such  apparent conflicts of interest and other abuses were common at the Broadcasting Board of Governors during the Bush Administration. The BBG has been consistently rated in government surveys as one of the worst managed Federal agencies. Read The Washington Post column by Joe Davidson: Employee Poll Makes VOA’s Parent the Worst Place to Work.

Under President Bush, political appointees selected to run State Department’s public diplomacy programs and U.S. international broadcasting were political operatives, advertising executives and mirror entrepreneurs who proved their value to the White House and the Democratic leadership in Congress with political contributions and loyal support. (The BBG is by law bipartisan and must include members of both parties, thus both the Bush White House and the Democratic leadership in Congress share the blame for selecting these individuals.) They were rewarded with jobs for which they were completely unsuited and unprepared.

It is not surprising, therefore, that during the past ten years, Under Secretaries of State for Public Diplomacy and members of the BBG have brought once sophisticated cultural and broadcasting programs to a new low level of simplistic and counterproductive propaganda. They promoted advertising and marketing campaigns that admittedly may sometimes produce desired results in a U.S. domestic business setting but turned out to be ineffective and outright offensive when applied to public diplomacy and international broadcasting. And that’s exactly what these political appointees who lacked any substantive experience in foreign policy, human rights and journalism, have done in trying to communicate America’s message to foreign audiences, especially in the Middle East.

Bring “American” Brand Back

BBG consultants declared “America” as a brand name not to be used in the Middle East and came up with a GM-like collection of new names and new private broadcasting initiatives, each one costing U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars. Since their creators lacked an even basic understanding of Arab culture and refused to listen to advice from area experts, there was no chance that they could be successful. And by all accounts, they were not. They should have asked themselves why the British, who after all perfected serious radio journalism for audiences abroad, did not feel the need to dilute the BBC World Service brand with new stations under many different names. 

Returning to a more sophisticated approach, using high-level cultural diplomacy and serious news broadcasts, may not be easy, as much of the knowledge and experience of previous decades has been destroyed and will take time to  rebuild. The only thing left of sophisticated news analysis and cultural programs once available on the Voice of America are old audio and text files of interviews with important cultural figures in the Arab world. They have been archived by the U.S. Embassy in Egypt, where some U.S. diplomats and local Egyptian employees still understand their value. It’s this kind of understanding and cultural sensitivity that needs to be brought back. Link to Egyptian Treasures from VOA on the U.S. Embassy Cairo website.

The BBG eliminated all VOA Arabic language programs to create privately-run Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. The programming philosophy of these stations, developed by former BBG member Norman Pattiz, a Democrat  – who despite being then Senator Joe Biden’s protege worked closely with neoconservatives in the Bush Administration – specifically rejected anything cultural in U.S. international broadcasting above the level of Brittney Spears. BBG members claimed that their market research supported programming derived from Hollywood and popular culture. Their professional background, however, made it impossible for them to conduct a sophisticated analysis that would take into consideration Middle Eastern history, cultural sensitivities, and political implications of their programming choices.

The Obama Administration would do well by quickly reversing many of the BBG’s decisions of the past decade. Correcting these mistakes would greatly improve America’s image abroad and save U.S. taxpayers’ money. “American” brand  should be brought back by making the Voice of America again a primary U.S. international broadcaster. VOA broadcasts and Internet site in Arabic should be restored as soon as possible.

Sources of Failure

How did U.S. international broadcasting go from a series of great successes during the Cold War to disastrous results in the Middle East in the last decade? While the simplistic worldview adopted by the Bush Administration bears some of the blame, the BBG and its members have made a bad situation far worse than it had to be.  These well meaning but completely miscast individuals, most of them with backgrounds in small domestic U.S. businesses, took a Cold War concept of surrogate broadcasting — which in any case was totally unsuitable for the Middle East – and compounded their error by removing from it one element that had made the original surrogate broadcaster – Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty –  vastly successful in broadcasting to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. That element was a high level intellectual and cultural program content developed by local journalists, writers, artists, and intellectuals — not  U.S. advertising experts and political loyalists based in Washington, D.C.

Not satisfied with silencing Voice of America broadcasts in Arabic, the BBG members and their private consultants destroyed cultural uniqueness and effectiveness of RFE/RL Russian broadcasts and terminated VOA radio to Russia just a few days before the Russian army invaded Georgia. FreeMediaOnline.org reported that only one BBG member, Blanquita Walsh Cullum — the only working journalist on the Board – had the courage to to oppose these cuts and spoke out against other abuses, including an ultimately unsuccessful effort by a former BBG chairman James K. Glassman to hire Paula Zahn as the Board’s high profile spokesperson while VOA broadcasts to critical countries were being eliminated. Paula Zahn declined the job offer as a private contractor that would have cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. James K. Glassman, who ended up as President Bush’s last Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, refused to resume VOA Russian radio broadcasts during the Russian-Georgian conflict.

In the process of expanding their power, BBG members deprived  foreign journalists working for their surrogate broadcasters of any measure of independence and authority, which was one of the key elements of success of U.S. broadcasts during the Cold War. At the same time, they failed to provide clear editorial and policy guidelines — another key element that previous American management teams were usually able to put in place successfully by working in partnership with foreign journalists. Those who dared to oppose BBG’s misguided ideas were fired or found their programs eliminated. To cover up their mistakes, the BBG forced foreign employees to sign secrecy agreements and refused to make public independent studies showing the failure of their projects in the Middle East. Read  Report Calls Alhurra A Failure on ProPublica.org.

By all accounts, the broadcasting  Board has been an unmitigated disaster. Some of the abuses are only now beginning to come to light. BBG-approved personnel policies at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which discriminate against foreign-born journalists,  may soon come before the European Court of Human Rights. Close links between the BBG Democrats and neoconservatives in the Bush Administration have proven that the Board does not protect U.S. international broadcasters from political interference with program philosophy and program content.  

The Obama Administration has a choice of abolishing the Broadcasting Board of Governors and closing down Alhurra Television and other private broadcasting entities created during Bush years. Democrats and Republicans in Congress have a common interest in saving taxpayers money, which are now being wasted on ineffective and duplicate programs.

Alhurra Television and the BBG, however, has some powerful supporters, mostly among Democrats who helped to create Alhurra, including former BBG member Senator Edward E. Kaufman, D-DE, a protege of Vice President Biden.  Read ProPublica.org: Alhurra Bleeding Viewers, Poll Finds, But Spending is Up.

One of the key members of the Obama Administration who may have a say in what happens to the BBG and Alhurra is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She is an ex officio member of the BBG, although she does not attend its meetings. She is usually represented at these meetings by a senior State Department official. While President Obama wisely avoided giving interviews to Alhurra, Secretary Clinton was recently interviewed by the network. Secretary Clinton is a friend of BBG member D. Jeffrey Hirschberg. He was one of the Democrats who worked closely with the Bush White House to create Radio Sawa and Alhurra. Hirschberg, a director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, was also said to be responsible for terminating VOA radio broadcasts to Russia shortly before the Russian invasion of Georgia.

Other than Senator Kaufman and perhaps also Secretary Clinton, Alhurra, which means “The Free One,” seems to have now far fewer supporters, especially among members of Congress. ProPublica.org reported that outraged members of Congress threatened to withhold funding after the network aired a report on a Holocaust deniers conference in Tehran. According to ProPulica.org, “the reporter who covered the conference told viewers that Jews had provided no scientific evidence of the Holocaust.”

As a former acting associate director of the Voice of America (VOA),  I am certain that VOA, the only American-brand broadcaster and a target of numerous BBG program cuts, is capable of providing news and representing America in a credible and responsible manner that will not embarrass the United States. It’s unlikely that VOA would give airtime to Holocaust deniers, as did Alhurra editors and anchors, who apparently felt they had no choice but to follow the BBG dictum of giving the audience what it wants based on market research. Although VOA has had various problems with its broadcasts over the years, it follows much more strict editorial and fiscal standards than the BBG’s favored private broadcasting entities and their contractors.

In some cases, private broadcasting entities and surrogate broadcasters can be effective if they have the right programming philosophy,  proper management and  sufficient autonomy combined with sufficient oversight.  Ultimately, much will depend on the quality and experience of the people the Obama Administration puts in charge of these programs. Their understanding how we can communicate with other nations by presenting what’s best in our culture and intellectual tradition will determine whether these programs will be successful in the future.

About Ted Lipien

Ted Lipien is a former Voice of America acting associate director. He was also a regional BBG media marketing manager responsible for placement of U.S. government-funded radio and TV programs on stations in Russia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries in Eurasia. In the 1980′s he was in charge of VOA radio broadcasts to Poland during the communist regime’s crackdown on the Solidarity labor union and oversaw the development of VOA television news programs to Ukraine and Russia. He is also author of “Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church” (O-Books – June 2008). In his book he describes the efforts of the KGB and other communist intelligence services to place spies in the Vatican and to influence reporting by Western journalists.

About FreeMediaOnline.org

FreeMediaOnline.org is a San Francisco-based nonprofit which supports media freedom worldwide. 

About GovoritAmerika.us

In December 2008, FreeMediaOnline.org launched a Russian-language web site — GovoritAmerika.us ГоворитАмерика.us  – which includes summaries of some of the more serious news and commentaries from multiple U.S. government and nongovernment sources. According to Ted Lipien, the web site is designed to compensate for the loss of information from the United States for Russian-speaking audiences due to program and budget cuts implemented by the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The web site, which includes links to VOA Russian Service news reports, is also designed to counter the BBG marketing strategy that has forced broadcasting entities to focus on entertainment programming and to avoid hard-hitting political reporting that might prevent local rebroadcasting or offend local officials. GovoritAmerika.us web site was developed without any public funding and is managed by volunteers. It is also hosted on LiveJournal.com.

BBG officials initially had told the VOA Russian Service that their requests to resume radio broadcasts were a “non-starter” even after Russia invaded Georgia. Only after weeks of protests, including reporting by FreeMediaOnline.org, the BBG finally allowed VOA to produce a short audio program for the Internet, updated only Monday through Friday. This program is rather difficult to find on the VOA website. We made it available for easier access and listening on the GovoritAmerika.us website managed by FreeMediaOnline.org.

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VOA Responds to Crisis in Georgia

On August 8, 2008, Russia’s military forces in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia began invading Georgian territory and moving toward its capital, Tbilisi. In response to the crisis, VOA increased its daily Georgian radio broadcasts from 30 to 60 minutes on shortwave and FM. VOA’s broadcast is also available live and on-demand on VOA Georgian’s website. VOA’s Russian Service also provided comprehensive coverage of Russia-Georgia conflict.

Even after the crisis started, former BBG members, Edward E. Kaufman (now a Democratic senator from Delaware) and James K. Glassman (former BBG chairman who was also President Bush’s Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy) rejected urgent pleas from Voice of America journalists to resume VOA Russian-language radio broadcasts to Russia and to the war zone in Georgia. According to FreeMediaOnline.org sources, Mr. Kaufman blocked a formal request from another BBG member Blanquita Walsh Cullum ( a Republican appointee and the only working journalist serving on the board) to have a new vote on resuming VOA Russian radio programs.

In another part of the budget request, the BBG admits that the Russian service “ceased its radio broadcasts on July 26, 2008,” and “is enhancing its website to appeal to burgeoning web audiences with targeted content.” The document fails to point out that largely as a result of ending VOA Russian radio and television programs, VOA’s annual reach in Russia dropped by 98% from 7.3% in 2007 to 0.2% (est.) in 2009 (another omission). No other international broadcaster, U.S. or foreign, has ever experienced a similarly dramatic fall in ratings. Even a 25% drop would have been a disaster, yet the BBG claims that despite a 98% audience loss VOA “improved its programming to such strategically important countries as… Russia.”

While advocating Internet-only strategy for Voice of America in Russia — rather than far more prudent and far more effective multiple platform program delivery  — the BBG admits in another part of its budget request that the Internet is vulnerable to blockage and censorship by unfriendly governments, ”Governments also target RFE/RL [a BBG-run private broadcaster] with technological disruption, including a global cyber attack in April 2008 which probably originated in Belarus, and Kazakhstan’s blockage of RFE/RL’s Kazakh-language website in the spring of 2008.” Another cyber attack, this time against Georgian websites, occurred during the Russian military intervention in Georgia. A recent article by Understanding Government, “Will America’s Voice Stay Silenced?“, reported on this issue and other problems at the BBG. 

The BBG’s budget request also states that “in response to the crisis, VOA increased its daily Georgian radio broadcasts from 30 to 60 minutes on shortwave and FM.” That statement is only technically correct. What the BBG does not mention is that the broadcasting board also had plans to eliminate all VOA radio programs to Georgia and that the VOA Georgian service was reduced to a handful of journalists who were not able to immediately increase airtime and had to work nonstop for many days just to produce a 30 minute radio program.

The BBG budget request to the U.S. Congress also includes another disingenuous and misleading statement:

VOA Covers Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

VOA’s South Asia Division language services provided wall-to-wall coverage of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, including on-the-ground coverage from stringers, interviews in Pakistan and India, and live call-in shows. VOA Hindi provided its new affiliate Zee TV with reaction from President Bush, President-elect Obama, U.S. officials, experts and members of American-Indian communities.

In fact, shorty before the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the BBG terminated all Voice of America radio broadcasts in Hindi. While bragging and misleading the Congress about its response to the terrorist attacks in India, in another part of the budget request the BBG frankly admits that it plans to close down VOA Hindi service altogether:

BBG proposes to end VOA broadcasts in Croatian, Hindi, and Greek, and discontinue radio rebroadcasts of PNN television programming and one hour daily of original VOA Persian radio.

Another misleading omission in the BBG’s FY 2010 budget request deals with VOA broadcasts to Ukraine:

Ukrainian Language Broadcasting

VOA’s Ukrainian Service continues to have a major impact through its television programming. An October 2008 survey indicated that VOA Ukrainian’s weekly TV programs reach 11.9 percent of the population and that the combined weekly TV, radio, and Internet audience is 14.2 percent (5.7 million people).

In fact, the BBG terminated all VOA radio broadcasts to Ukraine on December 31, 2008, a day before Russia cut off deliveries of natural gas to Ukraine and Western Europe in a billing dispute with Kiev, as it had earlier terminated VOA radio to Russia. Yet the BBG describes both Russia and Ukraine as “strategically important countries” for VOA broadcasting and in another part of the FY 2010 budget request says that “Russia has effectively turned into a one-party dictatorship in the past few years.”

The Broadcasting Board of Governor ignored numerous requests from members of Congress not to end VOA radio programming to media-at-risk countries like Russia and Ukraine. The BBG also ignored requests from members of Congress not to end VOA radio programs in Hindi.

According to the BBG’s critics, including BBG employees and their union leaders, misleading and disingenuous statements in the FY 2010 budget request reflect a culture of mismanagement and arrogance that was captured in the OPM’s most recent Human Capital Survey designed to measure employee job satisfaction and confidence in the management. This is what the AFGE Local 1812 government employees union website says about the quality of the management at the Broadcasting Board of Governors:

BBG CLAIMS TITLE AS THE WORST PLACE TO WORK IN GOVERNMENT

DATELINE: Washington, D.C., 01/23/09. AFGE Local 1812 has obtained a copy of the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) ranking of government agencies which included the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) based on the results of the 2008 Human Capital Resources survey. The BBG ranked dead last on three of the four categories the OPM measures in its survey. Finishing second to last in one category prevented an atrocious clean sweep of the four categories measuring the effectiveness of management at the BBG.

The BBG’s management problems are not limited only to federal government workers at the Voice of America working in Washington, D.C. but extend to other BBG-managed  U.S.-funded broadcasting entities throughout the world. Foreign journalists working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a private broadcaster also supervised by the BBG, accuse the management of depriving them, based on national origin, of the same job security and labor protection rights which are available to both American and Czech employees. RFE/RL headquarters are based in Prague, the Czech Republic. RFE/RL’s former acting president, Jeffrey Trimble, is now the BBG’s executive director and was responsible for implementing personnel and other management decisions during the period covered by the Human Capital Survey. He was replaced at RFE/RL in Prague by another BBG-selected official, Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin, a former resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalists-at-risk are a group of the most vulnerable contract employees from countries like Russia, Uzbekistan,  Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Afghanistan, Iran and several others. These journalists charge that by taking advantage of the communist era laws still on the books in the Czech Republic, the BBG has restricted their right to challenge unlawful discrimination and employment termination in Czech and U.S. courts.

Two former RFE/RL employees plan to pursue their claims against RFE/RL and the BBG by challenging the communist era Czech laws in the European Court of Human Rights. They have also petitioned United States Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and its supervising Federal agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

On May 6, the Czech news agency, CTK, and the largest Czech national daily Dnes (Today) reported that the two petitioners, former RFE/RL employees, a Croatian citizen Snjezana Pelivan and Anna Karapetian, an Armenian journalist, are charging BBG and the management of U.S. Congress-funded radio station with fraudulent deception intended to keep RFE/RL foreign personnel in a legal vacuum without court protection in the United States and the Czech Republic.

The BBG has also been severely criticized for imposing its programming and marketing strategy on journalists and forcing them to follow recommendations from uninformed consultants, some of them with links to BBG members, rather than allowing journalists and managers to use their own expert  knowledge of the audience. In an interview scheduled for publication this week, former head of RFE/RL Russian Service, Mario Corti, who was forced out in a programming dispute four years ago, charges that the BBG’s strategy and the American management of the station have destroyed the unique value of Radio Liberty broadcasts in Russia and made them nearly ineffective. Corti is now a manager at a private radio network in Russia. Since his departure, RFE/RL has been criticized by a Russian human rights organization for giving airtime to nationalist extremists known for promoting racist views and its Moscow-based bureau chief was downplaying the impact of the murder of a prominent human rights reporter Anna Politkovskaya.

But one of the most severely criticized BBG operations has been the Alhurra Television program for the Middle East.  According to KEBABfest blog, maintained by Arab-Americans, Alhurra viewers are subjected to “hours of mindless chatter interspersed with shallow assessments of selected current events and random feature stories (some of which are marginally entertaining). There is no depth in the news coverage, nor in the rest of the programming. Rather, there is a failed attempt at fast-paced US-style news that comes off as chaotic and incoherent.” Alhurra was also criticized for giving airtime to Holocaust deniers. A study by researchers for the University of Southern California, who conducted a review of Alhurra broadcasts, concluded that “the quality of Alhurra’s journalism is substandard on several levels“ and that the station has no significant audience in the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, the BBG is presenting Congress with a much rosier picture of Alhurra programming:

Expanding our reach.

The new three-hour daily show Al Youm launched on March 8, 2009 has redefined Alhurra’s voice in the region with an information mix unique in the Middle East today. The new show provides a platform for focusing on the news of the day, discussing compelling social issues, and a spectrum of information not presented anywhere else in the region’s media. The program broadcasts reports directly from the Middle East with hubs in Dubai, Beirut, Cairo, and Jerusalem. The mix from the region and America will continue to capitalize on Alhurra’s ability to provide the people of the Middle East with unique insight into America that will inform their views and opinions of the region, the world, and the United States.

While the original concept for Alhurra’s surrogate broadcasting, based on outdated Cold War models, came from neoconservatives in the Bush White House, programming and marketing strategy for Alhurra, Radio Sawa and other  U.S. broadcasting entities, which is still followed by the BBG, was introduced by former Democratic BBG member Norman Pattiz, founder of U.S. radio syndicate Westwood One and a protege of Vice President Joe Biden when he was a U.S. senator from Delaware.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors FY 2010 Budget Request to the U.S. Congress (link) provides for an interesting reading and is a good example of how government bureaucrats try to hide their mistakes and mismanagement of government resources while asking U.S. taxpayers for more money, said Ted Lipien, former VOA acting associate director, who is now president of FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit which supports independent journalism worldwide.

In response to the termination of VOA radio broadcasts to Russia, FreeMediaOnline.org has helped to launch a Russian-language news website, GovoritAmerika.us, which offers a wide selection of Russian-language news analysis from both U.S. government and nongovernment sources. GovoritAmerika.us is staffed by volunteers and receives no public funding.

WILL AMERICA’S VOICE STAY SILENCED?

07. May 2009
An Understanding Government report

By Mitchell Polman

Washington, D.C. — Since it was founded in 1942, the Voice of America has been just that – a radio voice for the American perspective on the issues of the day and a prime source of information about American society for its overseas audiences. VOA has also brought educational programs to overseas audiences on such issues as public health and business skills. In recent years, however, the broadcasting service has experienced staff cuts, service reductions, and politically-charged controversies.

At the center of the storm has been the Broadcasting Board of Governors, or BBG, which oversees U.S. government-funded media outlets. And these problems have arisen while – largely through emergency supplemental appropriations from Congress in the past couple of years – the Broadcasting Board of Governors has seen its budget actually increase. Critics say that the BBG has skewed priorities and has spent money that could have gone to its broadcasting services on wasteful administrative overhead and public relations efforts.

America’s voice in Russia fades to silence

Last year the BBG made the unpopular and unexpected decision to terminate all Russian language shortwave radio and television broadcasts of the Voice of America. It ordered VOA to shift its resources towards Internet-based broadcasting. The decision has been widely criticized, in large part because Internet penetration in Russia is too low – estimated at 20% by some pollsters – to justify ending radio and television broadcasts to the Russian public.

But critics see more than just a mistaken choice of media. Former VOA Deputy Director, and author of the book Voice of America: a History, Alan Heil, Jr., for example, said regarding radio service to Russia that “the Voice of America cannot continue to be silent. It would not only be contrary to the U.S. national interest. It would also be a distinctly untimely disservice to millions of listeners in Russia and the surrounding republics that had, until last July, depended on VOA Russian for more than sixty years as their reliable window on a turbulent world.”

Critics note that it is easier for governments to block websites and control Internet usage than it is to block shortwave radio, and that shortwave radio is more commonplace in conflict zones – where the need for independent media is most vital. The BBG’s decision has been called shortsighted for other reasons, in particular because the VOA could have continued producing shortwave and FM radio as well as television content using its seasoned Russian-language reporting staff – and used it on the Internet as well. Instead, the BBG ordered VOA to produce content only for the VOA website and terminate all Russian language radio and television programming.

And while some in the Broadcasting Board of Governors may consider shortwave radio to be a dying technology, the Russian government apparently does not. As the Voice of America fades as a radio source, Radio Moscow has been renamed the Voice of Russia, and it continues to broadcast in shortwave throughout both Russia and the entire world.

“Runet” – the Internet in Russia

Obviously, there is a vital role for the Internet in America’s information arsenal. In a December 2008 report, the media research group InterMedia said that television remains the dominant source of news coverage in Russia, but that the Internet is growing. 19% of the population, according to InterMedia, reported using the Internet to follow current events in Russia in 2008, up from 13% in 2007.

However, by some estimates only 2% of Russians have broadband service. Without broadband service, listening to radio programs or watching television programs over the Internet can be difficult. Broadband and DSL subscriptions are on the rise, but they are still mostly available in Moscow and St. Petersburg and other major cities. Several companies have large plans to expand their networks. However, as it stands now, many homes can not get even dial-up service for lack of a landline, and it is doubtful that Russian citizens will put up with or pay for watching or listening to a half hour long program on a painfully slow Internet connection. Overall, it seems clear that the share of the Russian population that is not thoroughly “wired” is now unable to be part of the VOA audience.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty gains while VOA loses

The BBG shifted some of VOA’s resources, including radio frequencies, to a different radio broadcaster — Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). RFE/RL – known simply as “Svoboda,” or “freedom,” in Russian, was a vital source of information for human rights activists inside the USSR during much of the Cold War. However, the two broadcast entities do not share the same mission or approach to broadcasting, so an expansion of Radio Free Europe cannot be seen as a substitute for what VOA has done in the past.

To begin with, RFE/RL focuses exclusively on news involving the country and region that is broadcasting to, whereas the VOA adds world news and reports on American policies and society. In addition, RFE/RL contracts with private companies overseas or surrogates in places like Moscow to reach its audience. The surrogate companies and their staffs and families are often subject to governmental pressure, intimidation, and threats. The Voice of America, on the other hand, broadcasts directly from Washington and avoids these direct pressures.

Historically, the Voice of America had a larger audience in Russia than RFE/RL has at present. According to InterMedia, VOA’s Russian language service had a cumulative annual audience for 2007 of 6,504,030 people (broadcasting for three hours of radio daily and one hour of TV) while RFE/RL had 3,613,350 people (broadcasting eighteen hours daily on radio). VOA radio had an average weekly listenership of 481,780 listeners, VOA TV had an average weekly viewership of 722,670 viewers and VOA had 120,445 visitors for its website from Russia. These statistics are for Russia only – they do not include Russian language speakers from Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan or other former Soviet republics, which are believed to be a substantial audience.

Finally, there is also some dispute about the methodologies being used to determine the number of visits to VOA’s Russian language website. Sources familiar with VOA’s numbers comment that roughly half of the visits to VOA’s Russian language site may actually be coming from inside the United States. Even if this estimate is exaggerated, there is no disputing the fact that the number of VOA website users is far below the audience that VOA TV and radio enjoyed in Russia. The most recent InterMedia study shows VOA’s annual audience reach in Russia dropped by 98% in just one year: from 7.3% in 2007 to an estimated 0.2% in 2009 (0.2% is the VOA Russian Internet reach.) This drop was experienced only by VOA, so it cannot be solely because of the Russian government’s restrictive media policies. Clearly the disappearance of VOA radio service has harmed America’s ability to reach out to Russian citizens.

Reaction from inside and outside Russia

The cutbacks in VOA service have drawn protests from many quarters. On July 31, 2008 a prominent group of human rights activists in St. Petersburg, Russia, including Aleksandr Nikitin, Anna Sharogradskaya, Olga Staravoitova, and lawyer Yuri Schmidt, sent a letter to Congress asking it to intervene with the BBG saying, “(The Russian) public is deprived of objective coverage of events inside the country and abroad. International radio stations broadcasting in Russian and Internet are the only sources of unbiased, balanced, and truthful information, especially analysis of global events. That is why we believe that it is premature to end VOA’s Russian Service broadcast.”

The bi-partisan Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, or CSCE, sent a letter to the Broadcasting Board of Governors in October 2008 protesting the Russian service cutbacks as well as planned reductions in VOA’s Ukrainian and Georgian services then-Chairman Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Ranking Minority Christopher Smith (R-NJ) asked for VOA shortwave radio service to be restored saying, “Freedom of the media in Russia, especially on the airwaves, has been cut to the point that it is extremely difficult for people to hear views other than those espoused by the Kremlin.”

Problems with the BBG decision emerged in stark relief during the August 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia. Russian language VOA programming went off the air on July 26, less than two weeks before the Russian army entered Georgia on August 7, 2008. Russian speakers in the region thus had one less source for coverage of the war and of the American government’s views. The Georgian language service had also been slated to go off the air, but was granted a reprieve and temporarily increased at the insistence of Congress.

VOA would suffer similar embarrassments in the months ahead as, for example, it terminated Ukrainian language radio service the day before Russia disrupted gas service to Ukraine on January 1, 2009, and when VOA’s highly popular Hindi language radio programs (with an audience of eight million listeners a week) went off the air shortly before the terrorist attacks on Mumbai. After protests from VOA supporters, VOA radio returned on a Moscow-based AM channel for only thirty minutes a day Monday through Friday, down from its previous three hours.

Former VOA Staff Calling for Service Restorations

One of the most prominent critics of the BBG is Ted Lipien, who spent 33 years with the VOA as a reporter and then as Associate Director for Central Programming. Retiring in 2006, Mr. Lipien soon after started the website FreeMediaOnline.org to assist independent broadcasters and journalists worldwide. Responding to the cutbacks at VOA, Mr. Lipien launched GovoritAmerika.us, a Russian language site containing news summaries from U.S. government and non-governmental sources.

Mr. Lipien’s criticisms of the BBG go beyond disagreements over planned cutbacks. He charges that BBG market research findings have led Voice of America to cut back on criticism of the Putin government. Mr. Lipien has similarly charged that market research was behind a Radio Liberty decision to carry a program featuring Russian extremists, which sparked protests from Russian human rights groups. Lipien says that most of the responsibility for the cutbacks in Russian language service is the responsibility of Ted Kaufman, a close confidante of Vice President Biden who replaced Biden as U.S. senator from Delaware.

Lipien is also critical of BBG member Jeffrey Hirschberg, charging that Hirschberg’s business interests in Russia are “an apparent conflict of interest” with his BBG responsibilities. Hirschberg, a former Director of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, is still on their board and is a partner and Managing Director of Kalorama Partners, LLC, a Washington, DC-based consulting and risk-management company. However, no specific conflict of interest has been documented and it is worth noting that Hirschberg is also a board member of the human rights group Freedom House. But according to Lipien, “in many ways, BBG’s business-connected members with conflicts of interest are more dangerous for journalistic independence at VOA and RFE/RL than the White House and State Department officials who in the past had also tried to interfere with programming for political reasons.”

James Glassman, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy near the end of George W. Bush’s term, was previously the BBG Board Chairman and led the effort to abolish the Russian language services. The board members who voted to abolish the services cited the decline of shortwave and the rise of the Internet as part of their reasoning for the changes.

Voices of discord at VOA Russian service?

However, other VOA insiders speculate that the reorganization of the Russian service may in part have been due to a reputation that it developed in earlier times as having a myriad of internal personnel problems. Former USIA official William P. Kiehl, the Country Affairs Officer for the USSR and Baltic States from 1981-1983, said of the VOA Russian service,

Among those who worked with, but not in, the Russian Service of the VOA, it was known as ‘the snake pit’ because of the internecine warfare that was a constant among the staff. The Russian Service like many language services then and now reflected both the good and the bad of the societies that provided the native speakers–so in the case of the Russian Service you had Westernizers and Slavophiles, monarchists and socialists, Jews and anti-Semites, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christians, people with all sorts of agendas, all working together in a high pressure situation under the supervision of a Russian speaking Foreign Service Officer from the ranks of the USIA or the State Department.

Clearly, the diverse staff of the VOA Russian-language service – a product of the Soviet Union’s own complicated legacy – must have been a difficult one to manage. But it produced programming that was listened to by millions of Soviet citizens during the Cold War, and remained popular after the breakup of the USSR. This legacy has been interrupted with the changes to VOA’s Russian service.

The future of the BBG

Currently there are four vacancies on the BBG Board out of a total of nine seats. Secretary of State Clinton holds one seat on the board, but generally speaking the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, currently designated to be Ms. Judith McHale, sits in for the Secretary. Board members can serve after their terms have expired until replacements are named. Currently, four members are serving in this status. While traditionally, four members have been named by the Senate Minority Leader, and four by the sitting president, it is now technically possible for President Obama to remake the Board in its entirety by himself.

The Obama Administration has not given any indication who it will appoint to the BBG or if it will even keep the BBG as an institution. In both 2007 and 2008 the Office of Personnel Management rated the BBG as having the worst employee satisfaction level of any government agency. So new appointees will have their hands full trying to fix it, and the abrupt decision taken in 2008 to end Russian-language service may be impossible to reverse. There continues to be a great deal of uncertainty surrounding much of VOA’s work. For example, the Uzbek language service was taken off the air, only to be switched back on in 2004-5. It is now again being threatened with closure.

It is quite possible that the Obama Administration views the BBG as an agency in need of an overhaul. The BBG was founded in the wake of the dismantling of the United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1999, a move which reshaped – not necessarily for the better – America’s public diplomacy. At that time, most of USIA’s programs were folded into the Department of State. But there was a fear that VOA, RFE/RL, and Radio Marti (which broadcasts to Cuba) would be unable to maintain their journalistic independence under the Department of State. The concept of a bi-partisan board with governors from both parties appointed by the president, with a spot reserved for a State Department official, arose as a solution to that problem.

Today, questions remain as to how international broadcasting operations should be managed. As a Senator, Vice President Biden was among those most involved in the discussion. How the Obama Administration will approach international broadcasting remains to be seen, but it is likely the BBG’s many perceived missteps are going to lead to some changes. In these challenging times, America can ill afford such tumult in its overseas broadcasting services.

John Brown

Obama may be popular abroad, but it won’t be so easy for his new public diplomacy secretary to improve America’s image

John Brown, a  US Foreign Service officer for more than 20 years currently affiliated with Georgetown University,  argues in an article published in guardian.co.uk that Judith McHale, the Obama administration’s pick for an under-secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs faces a number of big challenges for which she may not be fully prepared. More in guardian.co.uk

The commentary was written to show that in a flagrant disregard for U.S. foreign policy and human rights interests,  the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) nearly killed the Russian Service and other VOA broadcasting units. Due to the BBG’s actions, the Voice of America no longer has any Arabic-language programs and its broadcasts to many countries have been silenced. The BBG prevents the Russian Service from broadcasting live radio and TV and deprives it of resources to do any kind of serious reporting work, even for the Internet.

VOA sources tell FreeMediaOnline.org that the Service is barely able to assign one journalist to work an eight hour shift on weekends and can spare at most two or three to work the evening shift only Monday through Friday.  Journalistic positions remain unfilled, the service has no director, and the manager in charge of Internet programming  does not speak Russian and has no experience in Russian affairs.

FreeMediaOnline.org was told that the service had no money to send a reporter with Secretary Clinton. VOA Russian Service journalists cannot broadcast live radio and TV programs and therefore cannot cover live news conferences — all because of the BBG-imposed restrictions. VOA English Service has also been deprived of resources and is unable to provide extensive coverage of Russia and U.S.-Russian relations.

FreeMediaOnline.org has developed a special website, GovoritAmerika.us - ГоворитАмерика.us, in an attempt to help VOA’s Russian Service distribute their limited output and to provide additional U.S.-Russia-related news and analysis from various other sources in the United States to compensate for the restrictions placed on VOA by the BBG. None of it is sufficient, however, to repair the damage stemming from the BBG’s actions.

As FreeMediaOnline.org had predicted, the Internet-only strategy, forced on on the Russian Service by the BBG, has caused its annual audience reach to drop from 7.3% (2007) to 0.2% (est.2009) — a staggering and historically unprecedented 98% decline. All other major international broadcasters, including the BBC World Service, managed to hold on to their audiences in Russia in 2008 despite Mr. Putin’s restrictive media policies. None followed the BBG’s lead in completely terminating on-air Russian-language radio and TV broadcasts. What Mr. Putin could not fully achieve, the BBG did it for him. The United States no longer has a credible voice in Russia.

On top of that, BBG officials produced market research showing that Russian audiences like Mr. Putin, don’t want to hear criticism of human rights abuses, and want less politics. VOA Russian Service journalists were told to be less critical and focus more on nonpolitical Internet reporting that would attract more visitors to their site . This is an example of the total misunderstanding of VOA’s mission and the reasons for the public funding for U.S. international broadcasting.

The VOA Russian Service has been starved of resources, given an impossible task and set up to fail, but the BBG and the VOA management would rather blame a team of dedicated journalists rather than the officials who ended VOA radio broadcasts to Russia just 12 days before the Russian invasion of Georgia and refused to resume them.

Here are some excerpts from a note sent today by a VOA Russian Service broadcaster:

We are accused of bad editorial judgement, poor quality of our reporting and all other possible sins. Never mind that we are starved to death financially and in other resources including manpower, and literally barred from the air.

….management WANTED us to report more on culture because “independent monitors” in Russia said so in the program review.

How much of further damage undermining the Russian Service can we endure? I don’t know…