| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The Reagan administration knew how to throw a great party, and the celebration held on November 17, 1988, in the Organization of American States building in Washington, DC, was no exception. Stretch limos jammed that part of town. Guests included media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the president himself. The gala dinner honored the achievement of Charles Z. Wick, who had served throughout the Reagan years as director of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA).1 Originally established by Eisenhower in 1953, USIA conducted the U.S. government's public diplomacy: advancing foreign policy by engaging foreign publics through radio, press work, exhibitions, publications, cultural exchanges and a host of other channels. Wick's achievement was impressive. USIA had been a key part of the Reagan era's ideological barrage against the Soviet bloc, telling the world about the shooting down of the Korean airliner KAL 007, telling the people of the Soviet Union about the meltdown of Chernobyl, and mobilizing just enough European sympathy to allow the deployment of Pershing missiles. USIA was also part of the emergence of a new political order in Eastern Europe, conducting all manner of exchanges with the Gorbachev regime, and encouraging the voices of reform. The momentous political changes in Eastern Europe during the following year seemed to bear out the message of that November night: that USIA and public diplomacy were now central to American foreign policy. Yet the Reagan/Wick era of public diplomacy did not last. In 1999, USIA was absorbed into the State Department and public diplomacy thereby placed on a back burner.
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